Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of White House mandates coming out of the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. This encompasses pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five instances that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, warning that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, 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 diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. 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 welcome new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another continental gathering 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 stand up to “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. 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 are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected 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 expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
