Five Critical Key Moments in the Erosion of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of presidential directives emanating from the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.

The Trump administration has been the key driver, aided by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.

The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

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

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In March, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a senior US official announces that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm 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 head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.

Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference

In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they welcome new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

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 European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “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”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials are blocking usable products to be destroyed.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.