Five Major Significant Developments in the Attack on the Rights of Females in 2025.

In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of presidential directives issued from the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.

The American government has been the central catalyst, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.

The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They accomplish their goals by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We look at five episodes that affected the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In early spring, shortly after a key American development organization is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat states that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, warning that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference

In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a strategic summit held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, 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 warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization 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 ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. 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 rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.