Five Major Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.

This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees originating in the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.

The American government has been the central catalyst, aided by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.

The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.

They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.

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

USAID Dismantled

In early spring, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official reveals that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, predicting that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they welcome shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In June, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has grown significantly.

Contraceptive Destruction Order

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network 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 imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. 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 in deadlock as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

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 ban was reimposed 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 expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.