Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Assault on the Rights of Females in 2025.

Twelve months prior, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The torrent and swiftness of executive orders issued from the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.

The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, aided by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with political allies.

This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. These include 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 examine five instances that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration reveals that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, past leaders and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.

Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference

In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they applaud shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a major forum to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

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 July plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials will not allow 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 provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.