A Quintet of Key Moments in the Erosion of the Rights of Females in 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The sheer number and rapid pace of White House mandates emanating from the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, bolstered by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five junctures that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is frozen, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration states that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, warning that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny a huge female population 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 international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
