A Quintet of Key Moments in the Attack on the Rights of Females in 2025.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of White House mandates originating in the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the central catalyst, complemented by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five moments that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration announces that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, stating that mortality will increase. Activists say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
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 a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed 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 broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
