Five Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of White House mandates emanating from the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, supported by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We review five instances that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration states that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, past leaders and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, predicting that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, 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 rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. 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 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 fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
