Five Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five moments that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration reveals that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, stating that people will die as a result. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit 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 applaud changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated 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 broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding 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 dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
