Five Defining Landmark Occurrences in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees originating in the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to induce a state of shock. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the key driver, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by deeply conservative factions using the moment to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five moments that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of females globally.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration reveals that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights 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 themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group 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. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities will not allow 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 typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
