Five Major Key Moments in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

Twelve months prior, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders issued from the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But the situation was about to worsen.

The Trump administration has been the primary force, supported by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with ideological partners.

The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.

They accomplish their goals by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We review five instances that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration reveals that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, stating that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm 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. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Summits Promoting Conservative Norms

Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny countless females 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 imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated 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 broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.