Five Critical Key Moments in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of executive orders issued from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They accomplish their goals by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five episodes that affected the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration confirms that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, warning that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. 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 social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
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 midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny countless females from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. 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 fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
