A Quintet of Key Moments in the Attack on the Rights of Females in 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the central catalyst, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five moments that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat reveals that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, stating that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations 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 widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
