Five Critical Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of presidential directives coming out of the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the primary force, complemented by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five junctures that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is suspended, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat announces that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, warning that mortality will increase. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding 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 alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
