Five Critical Significant Developments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of presidential directives coming out of the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the primary force, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five instances that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration reveals that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, warning that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows 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. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate 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 grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates 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 health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding 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 ban was reimposed 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 national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
