A Quintet of Key Moments in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.

In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of executive orders emanating from the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.

The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, aided by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with political allies.

This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They accomplish their goals by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We analyze five junctures that affected the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In early spring, a month and a half following a key American development organization is suspended, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, predicting that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, data shows how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among rights advocates. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.