Five Defining Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to address the shortfall left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the key driver, aided by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five moments that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat states that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, predicting that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny countless females from family planning options, 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 calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing 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 refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. 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 encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.