A Quintet of Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
A year ago, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees issued from the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, aided by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions using the moment to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five episodes that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is suspended, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration states that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they applaud new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on 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 expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
