Five Critical Pivotal Events in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of executive orders coming out of the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.

The US administration has been the key driver, aided by relentless activism by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.

Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.

They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.

We review five instances that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.

USAID Dismantled

In the month of March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat announces that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, stating that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. 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 the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Summits Promoting Conservative Norms

Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among human rights defenders. In May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate 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 surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. 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 will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.

Broader Restrictions on Aid

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored 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. More details on the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.