Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders issued from the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the key driver, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five moments that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official states that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, predicting that people will die as a result. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
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 two-day conference held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
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 destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive countless females from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
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 policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, 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 policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health 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 contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
