Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Assault on the Rights of Females in 2025.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the primary force, supported by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five moments that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing international chaos, a senior US official confirms that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, warning that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, 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 a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they celebrate shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
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 destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
