Five Critical Landmark Occurrences in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of presidential directives coming out of the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the key driver, supported by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We examine five moments that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official reveals that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, stating that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering 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 shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates 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 warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed 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 sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
