Five Defining Pivotal Events in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of administrative decrees issued from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, aided by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
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 episodes that affected the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, shortly after a major US aid agency is halted, causing international chaos, a senior US official reveals that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, predicting that people will die as a result. Human rights advocates 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. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to push back on 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 heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls 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 renowned doctors' group 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 local authorities will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, 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. More details on the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
