Five Critical Landmark Occurrences in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

This time last year, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of presidential directives originating in the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.

The Trump administration has been the primary force, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations using the moment to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.

The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We review five moments that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.

The Demise of a Major Aid Agency

In March, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a senior US official reveals that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Activists say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm 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. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. 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.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they applaud shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, 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 grown significantly.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive 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 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”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.