Five Defining Pivotal Events in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of White House mandates issued from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the main instigator, complemented by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They do this by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five junctures that affected the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, cautioning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among equality campaigners. In early May, a president and first lady 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 graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
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 commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations 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”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
