Five Critical Key Moments in the Erosion of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of presidential directives emanating from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the main instigator, aided by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five junctures that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, a month and a half following a key American development organization is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat announces that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, predicting that lives will be lost. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they celebrate new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, 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 West Africa, 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 grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. 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 policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
