A Quintet of Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates emanating from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, bolstered by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with political allies.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five junctures that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, shortly after a key American development organization is frozen, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration reveals that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, stating that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms 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 significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. 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 a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa 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 destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “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”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
