Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Erosion of the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of White House mandates coming out of the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, supported by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping 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. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five moments that affected the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a key American development organization is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration confirms that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, past leaders and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, predicting that mortality will increase. Activists say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network 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 March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to 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 the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
