Five Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of White House mandates issued from the White House were viewed as a intentional maneuver to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the primary force, bolstered by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five moments that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing widespread distress, a senior US official reveals that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, cautioning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, 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 waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies 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 world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among human rights defenders. In May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, 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 resist “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding 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 policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
