Five Pivotal Events in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.

Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were anticipating a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates originating in the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.

The Washington leadership has been the key driver, aided by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.

The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.

They do this by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.

We analyze five episodes that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration reveals that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, stating that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

Summits Promoting Conservative Norms

Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, 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. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.

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 dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. 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 exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, 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 extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.