Five Critical Significant Developments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

Twelve months prior, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders issued from the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.

The US administration has been the main instigator, bolstered by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.

The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.

We examine five episodes that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.

The Dismantling of USAID

In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration announces that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, former presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, warning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights 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, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries 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 Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome shifts in US policy 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 toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, 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 exhorts African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

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 commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.