Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates originating in the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, complemented by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five episodes that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat reveals that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, warning that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died 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 leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held in parallel 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 welcome new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” 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 reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, 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 the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope 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.
