🔗 Share this article A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025. A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of executive orders originating in the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen. The Trump administration has been the primary force, complemented by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with ideological partners. Often termed the anti-gender movement refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that work to dismantle gains in a variety of areas. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction. They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups. We analyze five episodes that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls. USAID Effectively Dismantled In March, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a senior US official states that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, predicting that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally. Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world. Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. 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 an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly. American Plan to Burn Birth Control As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated. Broader Restrictions on Aid Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in January. 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 encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of executive orders originating in the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen. The Trump administration has been the primary force, complemented by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with ideological partners. Often termed the anti-gender movement refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that work to dismantle gains in a variety of areas. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction. They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups. We analyze five episodes that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls. USAID Effectively Dismantled In March, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a senior US official states that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, predicting that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally. Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world. Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. 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 an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly. American Plan to Burn Birth Control As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated. Broader Restrictions on Aid Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in January. 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 encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.