Five Critical Landmark Occurrences in the Attack on the Rights of Females in the Past Year.

Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of executive orders coming out of the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.

The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, complemented by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with ideological partners.

This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.

They achieve this through influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We review five junctures that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.

USAID Dismantled

In March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration reveals that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, stating that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.