Five Critical Significant Developments in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a second Trump term. Few were prepared for. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.

The Trump administration has been the primary force, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.

The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.

They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We analyze five episodes that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.

USAID Dismantled

In March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is frozen, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat reveals that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, warning that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.

Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference

In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they celebrate shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a significant conference 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 graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note 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 post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government will not allow usable products to be destroyed.

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 commonplace under 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 broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.