Five Defining Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.

This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of White House mandates emanating from the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.

The US administration has been the main instigator, complemented by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions using the moment to build worldwide connections with political allies.

The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.

They accomplish their goals by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.

We analyze five moments that influenced the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.

USAID Dismantled

In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that mortality will increase. Activists say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from access to birth control, 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 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 declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials are blocking usable products to be destroyed.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored 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 extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.