Five Critical Key Moments in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees originating in the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five junctures that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, a month and a half following a key American development organization is frozen, causing global disruption, a senior US official reveals that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm 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. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates 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 summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive 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 politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated 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 broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
