Five Critical Significant Developments in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five junctures that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a senior US official states that nearly all of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, predicting that people will die as a result. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, 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 millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries 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.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they applaud new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
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 millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. 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 forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to 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 January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
