A Quintet of Significant Developments in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of presidential directives issued from the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the central catalyst, complemented by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They accomplish their goals by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five instances that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing global disruption, a senior US official confirms that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, former presidents and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, cautioning that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution 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 the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they applaud new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark 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 emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
