Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Females in 2025.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of executive orders coming out of the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five instances that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
USAID Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing widespread distress, a top American diplomat reveals that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that lives will be lost. Activists 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 waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization 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 upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another regional summit 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 stand up to “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny 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 deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
