Five Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of executive orders issued from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.

The US administration has been the main instigator, supported by relentless activism by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.

This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.

We analyze five junctures that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.

The Dismantling of USAID

In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration confirms that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that mortality will increase. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.

Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference

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 chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they welcome 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 venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.

Broader Restrictions on Aid

Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to 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 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 policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.