A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates originating in the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the primary force, aided by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They achieve this through influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five moments that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing international chaos, a senior US official states that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, 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 millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive countless females from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. 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 will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
