Five Significant Developments in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of presidential directives emanating from the White House were regarded as a intentional maneuver to overwhelm and create panic. This strategy had its intended impact – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the main instigator, supported by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five episodes that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat confirms that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, warning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, 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 reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
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 UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they applaud shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered 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 significant conference to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, 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 grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive countless females from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. 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 national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
