Five Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were anticipating a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of executive orders emanating from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, bolstered by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions using the moment to build worldwide connections with political allies.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five moments that influenced the protection, honor, and existence of females globally.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration reveals that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, warning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
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 millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise 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 expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
