Five Pivotal Events in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates coming out of the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, aided by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We analyze five episodes that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing widespread distress, a senior US official announces that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, stating that lives will be lost. Activists say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population 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 “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group 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 in deadlock as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. 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. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
