Five Major Significant Developments in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates originating in the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But the situation was about to worsen.
The American government has been the primary force, aided by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans 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 do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five episodes that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is suspended, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat confirms that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization 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 women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they applaud new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the policy was restored 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 extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
