Five Critical Key Moments in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of White House mandates issued from the White House were seen as a intentional maneuver to cause confusion and fear. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the primary force, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They accomplish their goals by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We review five episodes that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing global disruption, a senior US official confirms that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. 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 the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church 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 level of external participation has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.