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

Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of executive orders issued from the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.

The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, complemented by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.

The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.

They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.

We examine five episodes that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.

USAID Dismantled

In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat confirms that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in conflict areas. 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 millions more to come. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. 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.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

Summits Promoting Conservative Norms

Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

Broader Restrictions on Aid

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.