Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, supported by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to strengthen global ties with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five junctures that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
The Dismantling of USAID
In March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, warning that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. 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 faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns 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 few days later, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. 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 the regional government refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, 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 rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
