In 2025, women’s and girls’ rights across the globe experienced a series of serious reversals as powerful political shifts and coordinated campaigns by anti-rights groups undermined progress on gender equality, access to health care, and protections against violence. Advocates and experts warn that these developments, driven by influential governments and transnational networks, have intensified threats to the dignity, autonomy and safety of women and girls, particularly in low-income countries and humanitarian settings.
Central to this regression was the U.S. government’s retrenchment from longstanding international health and development commitments. Following the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, a sweeping overhaul of foreign aid saw the drastic reduction of USAID programmes, eliminating roughly 83 per cent of funding that supported reproductive health, maternal care and protection against gender-based violence globally. Rights defenders described the cuts as a “savage attack on human rights”, with cascading effects as other major donors followed suit with their own reductions. The systemic drop in funding has contributed to closures of family planning clinics, shortages of contraceptives and a sharp decrease in access to essential health services for millions of women and girls across Africa, the Middle East and other regions.
The shrinking of U.S. and other donor aid coincided with a significant rise in the influence of ultra-conservative Christian and anti-gender groups on the global stage. These organisations, well-connected with political allies in multiple continents, actively promoted traditional family structures and resisted comprehensive sexuality education, abortion rights and inclusive gender policies. Their presence was conspicuous at alternative events organised alongside official UN Women gatherings, where delegates shared strategies to counter what they called a “radical agenda,” applauding the policy shifts of conservative governments.
In parts of Africa, summer conferences framed around “family values” and national sovereignty drew leading figures from anti-rights networks based in the United States and Europe. Rights advocates expressed alarm at the scale of such influence, arguing that these forums provided an opening for conservative narratives to gain traction among policymakers and civil society, often sidelining voices advocating for gender equality and reproductive autonomy.
Further compounding these setbacks was a controversial plan announced by the U.S. government to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives stored in Europe. International health organisations condemned the move as ideologically motivated and equivalent to reproductive coercion, since it denied ready supplies of critical reproductive health commodities to women and girls in need.
Another dimension of the rollback came through the reinstatement and expansion of the so-called global gag rule, broadening restrictions on foreign NGOs and governments receiving U.S. aid. Under this policy, organisations were barred from providing or even discussing abortion as part of reproductive health services, with many fearing that all forms of aid could become contingent on adherence to rigid anti-abortion and anti-diversity conditions. Critics argued that this not only curtailed women’s health choices but also emboldened anti-rights actors worldwide.
Taken together, these developments mark 2025 as a year in which coordinated political strategy, ideological lobbying and shifts in aid policy combined to roll back key gains in women’s rights and gender justice. Human rights campaigners caution that, without concerted international resistance, these trends risk becoming entrenched, with the most severe consequences borne by women and girls in vulnerable contexts.
