Five Major Key Moments in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees originating in the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the key driver, aided by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five moments that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official confirms that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, stating that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. 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.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among equality campaigners. In early May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
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 came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, 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. More details on the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
