Five Pivotal Events in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.

This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of executive orders originating in the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But the situation was about to worsen.

The Washington leadership has been the key driver, bolstered by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.

The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.

They achieve this through influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We examine five episodes that affected the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In the month of March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat reveals that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, stating that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations 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 hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they applaud new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.

Summits Promoting Conservative Norms

Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

Broader Restrictions on Aid

Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, 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 widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.