Five Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the main instigator, bolstered by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions using the moment to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We look at five instances that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a senior US official confirms that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, cautioning that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms 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, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel 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 gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among rights advocates. In May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In June, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny countless females from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
