Five Defining Pivotal Events in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees originating in the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, complemented by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five instances that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In March, shortly after a key American development organization is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official confirms that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, predicting that mortality will increase. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they welcome shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent 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 imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, 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. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
