A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We review five junctures that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing international chaos, a senior US official states that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, warning that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency 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 women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls 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 prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
