Five Major Key Moments in the Attack on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of White House mandates coming out of the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.

The Washington leadership has been the primary force, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with political allies.

The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.

They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.

We review five junctures that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.

The Dismantling of USAID

In the month of March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official reveals that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization 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 Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general 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 fundamental freedoms for women around the world.

Summits Promoting Conservative Norms

Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.

Contraceptive Destruction Order

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny countless females from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. 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 rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the policy was restored in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.