Five Significant Developments in the Attack on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees issued from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the primary force, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They accomplish their goals by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five junctures that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, warning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group 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 the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks 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 buoyant mood as they welcome shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. 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 encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
