Five Critical Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of White House mandates coming out of the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The US administration has been the primary force, bolstered by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five episodes that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat reveals that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, cautioning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
