A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the key driver, complemented by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They accomplish their goals by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five junctures that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, shortly after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration confirms that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, stating that mortality will increase. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In early May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” 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 refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding 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 policy was restored in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, 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. More details on the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
