Five Major Key Moments in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.

This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of executive orders originating in the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But the situation was about to worsen.

The US administration has been the key driver, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with like-minded governments.

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 seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.

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 review five junctures that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat announces that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, 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 access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus 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 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 regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In June, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity 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 in deadlock as the regional government refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.