Five Major Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of presidential directives issued from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.

The Trump administration has been the key driver, supported by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with political allies.

The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.

They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We review five instances that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of females globally.

The Demise of a Major Aid Agency

In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration reveals that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, warning that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. 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.

Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference

In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held concurrently 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 buoyant mood as they applaud new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among rights advocates. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has grown significantly.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group 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 host nation officials refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated 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 expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.