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

In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of presidential directives emanating from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. The tactic proved effective – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.

The American government has been the key driver, supported by relentless activism by far-right organisations using the moment to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.

The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.

We look at five moments that affected the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat confirms that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In the same month, 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 forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates 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 post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls 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 imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities will not allow usable products to be destroyed.

Broader Restrictions on Aid

Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on 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 expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health 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 conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.