Five Major Landmark Occurrences in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of 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 fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They accomplish their goals by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We review five episodes that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing international chaos, a senior US official states that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, stating that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. 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 millions more to come. 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 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 luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals 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 “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
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 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 reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
