A Quintet of Key Moments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates originating in the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But the situation was about to worsen.

The Trump administration has been the primary force, aided by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with ideological partners.

This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.

They do this by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We look at five episodes that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.

USAID Dismantled

In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a top American diplomat states that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among rights advocates. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.