Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees issued from the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, supported by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
Often termed the anti-gender movement refers to a global network of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five episodes that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat confirms that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, warning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held in parallel with 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 optimistic frame of mind as they applaud new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
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 warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls 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 prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored 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 broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
