Five Major Key Moments in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of White House mandates emanating from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.

The American government has been the primary force, aided by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.

The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.

They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We examine five instances that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of females globally.

USAID Dismantled

In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration confirms that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, cautioning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding 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 high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they celebrate shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.

Contraceptive Destruction Order

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, 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 calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

Broader Restrictions on Aid

Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.