Five Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of presidential directives coming out of the White House were seen as a intentional maneuver to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, supported by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five instances that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat reveals that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, warning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held alongside the international conference on women's rights. 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 new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. 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 renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. 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 national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
