A Quintet of Significant Developments in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees issued from the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with political allies.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five junctures that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing international chaos, a senior US official confirms that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, warning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. 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 March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In May, a national leader and spouse 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 graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population 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 exporting a regressive policy worldwide” 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 fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored 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 governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application 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 upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
