A Quintet of Significant Developments in the Assault on the Rights of Females in 2025.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of administrative decrees issued from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the central catalyst, supported by relentless activism by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five moments that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat reveals that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Activists say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue 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 optimistic frame of mind as they welcome new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a major forum to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
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 midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
