A Quintet of Significant Developments in the Attack on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.

In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a second Trump term. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of White House mandates issued from the White House were regarded as a intentional maneuver to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.

The US administration has been the key driver, bolstered by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.

Often termed the anti-gender movement refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.

We analyze five episodes that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.

USAID Dismantled

In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat announces that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, cautioning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. 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 Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny countless females from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. 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”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed 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 national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.