‘Trojan horse moment’: anti-rights groups seize chance to fill void left by US aid cuts

Ultra-conservative Christian organisations look to reshape global health landscape as new aid agreements open door to demands restricting family planning services

Isabel Choat
Wed 17 Dec 2025

The sudden stop work order on USAID in January 2025 sent shock waves around the world. Many health clinics were immediately shut down, leaving millions without access to vital medicines and facilities, with potentially deadly consequences, especially for HIV patients, children, and women and adolescent girls.

To many, the subsequent axing of 83% of USAID programmes seemed like pure nihilism, engineered by ideologues who wanted to kill off the agency. But there was a long-term vision behind the destruction. The gutting of USAID has cleared a path for the next phase of a plan to reshape the global health landscape, say reproductive justice campaigners.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/17/trojan-horse-moment-anti-rights-groups-fill-void-us-aid-cuts

‘A direct attack’: US, European anti-rights groups descend on ‘family values’ events in Africa

Ultra-conservative groups from the US and Europe are attending a “family values” conference in Kenya this week – one of several planned in Africa this year – in what activists are describing as a “direct attack” on LGBT and women’s rights.

17/05/2025
By: Joanna YORK

The Pan-African conference on Family Values began in Nairobi on Monday with a call to wage a “biblical” fight for the family unit from Anne Mbugua, chairperson of event organiser the Africa Christian Professionals Forum.

The conference is one of several planned across Africa this year, backed by wealthy US ultra-Christian groups, including Family Watch International, Christian Council International, the Center for Family and Human Rights, and the Family Policy Institute.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20250517-a-direct-attack-us-european-anti-rights-groups-descend-on-family-values-events-in-africa

‘It’s needless death’: Ugandan activists decry restrictive abortion laws

Abortion is generally illegal in Uganda, and fear of imprisonment leads many to resort to extreme and unsafe practices.

By Sophie Neiman
Published On 28 Sep 2024

Kampala, Uganda – At exactly 3:21pm on August 25, Moses Odongo received a call informing him that his 14-year-old cousin Christine had died attempting to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Odongo, who is 40, had just returned home and was sitting down for a drink and a bite to eat. His grief at her untimely death quickly mixed with anger at Uganda’s restrictive abortion laws and conservative culture, which he believes killed her.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/9/28/its-needless-death-ugandan-activists-decry-restrictive-abortion-laws

Project 2025 Is Already Here

Core aspects of the far-right plan to overhaul U.S. government are already being put into place, through an anti-abortion influence campaign overseas.

GILLIAN KANE
APRIL 25, 2024

When pundits, critics and supporters discuss Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s readiness work plan for a second Donald Trump presidency, it’s always in the future tense. At more than 900 pages, Project 2025’s playbook, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, is a door-stopper of policy recommendations that lays out detailed steps for decimating democracy in the first 180 days of the new administration. Some executive orders include eliminating the Department of Education (“a woke education cartel”), renaming the Department of Health and Human Services the “Department of Life,” and anchoring these commitments in the promise to restore “the family as the centerpiece of American life.”

This Christian nationalist plan is no fever dream: even if Trump loses in November, many core aspects of Project 2025 will still be implemented. In fact, some of its recommendations are already underway.

Continued: https://inthesetimes.com/article/project-2025-protego-trump-huber-abortion

Uganda condemns sex education for 10-year-olds as ‘morally wrong’

Uganda condemns sex education for 10-year-olds as 'morally wrong'

Ministry of Health declines to endorse proposals to tackle teen pregnancy rates, with distribution of contraceptives to 15-year-olds branded an ‘erosion of morals’

Samuel Okiror in Kampala
Friday 20 October 2017

A row has broken out in Uganda over proposals to extend sex education to 10-year-olds and give some 15-year-olds access to family planning services.

The Ministry of Health has refused to endorse the guidelines, which were designed to tackle the country’s high teenage pregnancy rate, objecting that they are morally wrong and would encourage promiscuity and abortions.

Activists condemned the decision as a “failure of leadership”.

Continued at source: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/oct/20/uganda-condemns-sex-education-for-10-year-olds-as-morally-wrong