Five Defining Landmark Occurrences in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of administrative decrees originating in the White House were viewed as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the primary force, complemented by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with political allies.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. This encompasses pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five moments that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is suspended, causing widespread distress, a senior US official states that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. 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.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they celebrate new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, 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 expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. 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 “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. 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 cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
