Five Major Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of White House mandates originating in the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, supported by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five junctures that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing international chaos, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations 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 significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance 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 luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan 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 millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, 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 “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy 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 anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
