Five Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.

A year ago, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of executive orders emanating from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.

The Trump administration has been the key driver, supported by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.

This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. This covers 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 analyze five moments that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In March, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a top American diplomat reveals that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, warning that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders 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 the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held concurrently with 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 applaud new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In May, a president and first lady open a major forum to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

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 midsummer 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 surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

Broader Restrictions on Aid

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.