A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of executive orders issued from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with political allies.
The movement against gender equality describes a worldwide alliance of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five episodes that affected the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a key American development organization is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat reveals that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, warning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among human rights defenders. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals 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 push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” 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 declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
