Five Defining Landmark Occurrences in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a second Trump term. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees issued from the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The US administration has been the central catalyst, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We analyze five junctures that affected the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing widespread distress, a senior US official reveals that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, predicting that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they celebrate new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. 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 refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. 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 sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
