Five Defining Significant Developments in the Assault on the Rights of Females in 2025.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the key driver, supported by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We analyze five moments that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat announces that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, warning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny 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 calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. 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 sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
