Five Major Key Moments in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five instances that affected the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a key American development organization is halted, causing international chaos, a senior US official reveals that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, predicting that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a strategic summit held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they welcome shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny a huge female population 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 prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government 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 commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored 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 expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
