Five Major Key Moments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of presidential directives originating in the White House were seen as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, bolstered by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors 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 foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five moments that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
The Dismantling of USAID
In March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration states that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, stating that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates 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 announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In June, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As medical centers in numerous African countries 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 dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. 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. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
