Five Major Key Moments in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
A year ago, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of presidential directives originating in the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, complemented by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five moments that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is halted, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat announces that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows 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 announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a strategic summit held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In May, a national leader and spouse 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 participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates 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 medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization 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 dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, 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 ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
