Five Defining Pivotal Events in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of White House mandates originating in the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, supported by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations using the moment to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five moments that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration confirms that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, stating that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm 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 follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are graced 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 family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, 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 policy was restored 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 broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
