Five Critical Landmark Occurrences in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were anticipating a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of presidential directives issued from the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, complemented by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We examine five junctures that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.
The Dismantling of USAID
In March, six weeks after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a senior US official states that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, predicting that people will die as a result. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. 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. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a strategic summit held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In May, a president and first lady open a major forum to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, 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 prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. 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 include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.