Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of presidential directives emanating from the White House were viewed as a intentional maneuver to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, aided by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions using the moment to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five junctures that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing international chaos, a senior US official confirms that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, warning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal 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. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held in parallel with 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 high spirits as they welcome shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among human rights defenders. In May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on family values 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 global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored 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 extend the restrictions 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 leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
