Five Defining Key Moments in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were preparing for a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of administrative decrees issued from the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The American government has been the key driver, bolstered by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five junctures that influenced the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a senior US official confirms that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, warning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a strategic summit held alongside 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 celebrate new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about 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 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 cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
