A Quintet of Landmark Occurrences in the Erosion of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.

This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of executive orders coming out of the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.

The US administration has been the primary force, aided by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.

This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We review five junctures that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that people will die as a result. Activists say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference 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 graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for 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 policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, 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 expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.