Five Major Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The sheer number and rapid pace of White House mandates emanating from the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the primary force, bolstered by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five junctures that affected the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration announces that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus 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 focused on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. 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 cover diversity programmes. More details on the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
