Five Critical Key Moments in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.

This time last year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of White House mandates emanating from the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.

The US administration has been the key driver, complemented by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions using the moment to build worldwide connections with like-minded governments.

Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.

We analyze five moments that affected the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.

The Demise of a Major Aid Agency

In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, cautioning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates 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. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, data shows how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they applaud new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Summits Promoting Conservative Norms

Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among rights advocates. In early May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.

Contraceptive Destruction Order

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 incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.