🔗 Share this article Five Major Crucial Incidents in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in 2025. Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of executive orders coming out of the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen. The Washington leadership has been the primary force, complemented by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes. This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education. They pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities. We look at five episodes that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population. USAID Dismantled In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is frozen, causing global disruption, a senior US official reveals that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, cautioning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, 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 millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda. Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit 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 welcome shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world. African ‘Family Values’ Conferences Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another regional summit 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 push back against “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly. Contraceptive Destruction Order As health facilities across 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 destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed. ‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, 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. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of executive orders coming out of the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen. The Washington leadership has been the primary force, complemented by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes. This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education. They pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities. We look at five episodes that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population. USAID Dismantled In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is frozen, causing global disruption, a senior US official reveals that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, cautioning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, 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 millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda. Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit 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 welcome shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world. African ‘Family Values’ Conferences Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another regional summit 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 push back against “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly. Contraceptive Destruction Order As health facilities across 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 destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed. ‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, 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. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.