Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Erosion of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of White House mandates coming out of the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the key driver, aided by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five episodes that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat reveals that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. 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.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they applaud shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In June, a prominent church 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. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
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 was widely expected 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 governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
