Five Major Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders emanating from the White House were viewed as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The US administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions using the moment to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five episodes that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is halted, causing global disruption, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, warning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. 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 many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
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 incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, 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 calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
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 the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
