Five Critical Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of White House mandates emanating from the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the primary force, aided by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five moments that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, cautioning that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held concurrently with 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 buoyant mood as they celebrate new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among human rights defenders. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
