Five Significant Developments in the Erosion of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of White House mandates coming out of the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. The tactic proved effective – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The American government has been the central catalyst, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five instances that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders 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.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note 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 depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed 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 expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.