Five Defining Landmark Occurrences in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees originating in the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, supported by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five episodes that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, six weeks after a key American development organization is halted, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat confirms that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, predicting that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, 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 many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network 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 faith-based advocacy networks 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 applaud shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected 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 governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
