Five Landmark Occurrences in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of executive orders emanating from the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five episodes that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official states that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, stating that lives will be lost. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
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 was widely expected 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 extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
