Five Major Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees issued from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the key driver, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They accomplish their goals by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five junctures that affected the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration states that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, stating that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
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 midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive countless females from family planning options, 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 renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.