A Quintet of Key Moments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of White House mandates originating in the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, bolstered by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They accomplish their goals by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five junctures that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In March, shortly after a key American development organization is frozen, causing widespread distress, a senior US official confirms that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, stating that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal 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 proceed with parallel slashes. 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.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
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 came as no surprise when the policy was restored 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 expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
