Five Major Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders emanating from the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the main instigator, complemented by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five junctures that influenced the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a key American development organization is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, warning that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. 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 many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. 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 “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
