🔗 Share this article Five Defining Significant Developments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025. Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of executive orders originating in the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. 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 Trump administration has been the central catalyst, aided by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes. The movement against gender equality describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education. They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups. We look at five junctures that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population. USAID Dismantled In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration reveals that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, cautioning that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner. Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering 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 shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world. Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early 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 US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably. Contraceptive Destruction Order As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated. Broader Restrictions on Aid Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored 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 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 leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of executive orders originating in the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. 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 Trump administration has been the central catalyst, aided by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes. The movement against gender equality describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education. They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups. We look at five junctures that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population. USAID Dismantled In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration reveals that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, cautioning that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner. Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering 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 shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world. Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early 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 US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably. Contraceptive Destruction Order As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated. Broader Restrictions on Aid Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored 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 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 leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.