Five Critical Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled 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 key driver, complemented by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five moments that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat confirms that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, 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 reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm 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. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
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 concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening 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 centered on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny countless females from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored 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 include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
