Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Rights of Females in 2025.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of presidential directives coming out of the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the primary force, bolstered by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
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 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 pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We analyze five junctures that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a key American development organization is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they applaud shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early 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 continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. 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 declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to 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 reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
