Five Defining Significant Developments in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of executive orders coming out of the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, supported by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions using the moment to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine 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 advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five moments that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat announces that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, cautioning that lives will be lost. Activists say that the demise of the agency 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 the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal 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 head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
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 annual UN Women gathering. 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 new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of 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 soon after, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated 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 include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. 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”. 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.
