Five Major Key Moments in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of executive orders emanating from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.
The American government has been the key driver, aided by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five episodes that affected the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat reveals that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, cautioning that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, data shows how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
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 two-day conference held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
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 July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under 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 broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.