Five Significant Developments in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of White House mandates originating in the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, aided by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five moments that affected the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, six weeks after a key American development organization is halted, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration reveals that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, warning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. 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 announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance 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 high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation 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 July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the policy was restored 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 cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
