A Quintet of Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Females in 2025.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders issued from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the key driver, complemented by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five instances that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, shortly after a key American development organization is frozen, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration states that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, cautioning that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, 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 proceed with parallel slashes. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, 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 leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed 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 include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
