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This article references rape and sexual abuse.
Today (20th January 2025), Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the USA.
Before his election victory, Trump said that his advisers had instructed him to stop saying he will ‘protect women’, calling it ‘inappropriate’. “I said, 'Well, I'm going to do it, whether the women like it or not, I'm going to protect them,'" Trump said. He blamed the Biden-Harris administration, saying their immigration policies had "imported criminal migrants" to enter the country and to “assault, rape and murder our women and girls.”
Trump, a twice impeached convicted felon who has taken credit for the elimination of Roe v. Wade and rolling back abortion rights in the US, will undoubtedly have an impact on women’s rights movements across the globe in his second presidency. His victory begs the question – how and where around the world will this impact be felt?
If we lived in a society that genuinely cared about women, Trump's presidential bid would have ended the moment he first uttered his plan out loud.
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Reproductive rights
Abortion rights were on the ballot in the US presidential election both indirectly through the choice of President and more directly in 10 states, where the electorate had the chance to vote directly on whether to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitutions. This comes after the 2022 fall of Roe v. Wade, a court ruling dating back to 1973 that protected the right to abortion. When the ruling was overturned, each state was able to reassess their abortion laws.
On election night, voters in Missouri chose to restore abortion rights, making it the first state to overturn a near-total abortion ban that resulted from the fall of Roe v. Wade. In Florida, the amendment to enshrine abortion rights failed, even though it got 57 percent of the vote – the measure needed 60 percent to pass. This was the first abortion rights ballot measure to not pass after the fall of Roe. Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature enacted a near-total abortion ban earlier this year. The current law bans abortions after six weeks of gestation, a.k.a. two weeks after a missed period and before many women even know they are pregnant. It doesn’t include exceptions for rape or incest. It also makes it a crime for doctors if they are charged with performing an abortion outside of these narrow legal parameters.
New York, Colorado, Arizona, Missouri, Nevada, Montana and Maryland voted to protect abortion rights, while South Dakota, Nebraska and Florida voted against the right to abortion. This means that in South Dakota, the state's near total abortion ban stands and in Nebraska, the 12-week abortion ban remains in place.
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade – which Donald Trump has publicly stated he held a key role in – far-right anti-abortion movements have grown around the world, including the UK. Louise McCudden, MSI Reproductive Choices’ UK head of external affairs, told The Standard in December 2024: “The anti-choice groups are very vocal [and] they're quite well organised... when Roe v Wade was reversed in the United States, we saw a big surge in anti-choice activity outside our clinics, harassing women on their way in to get an abortion. And we know that they did feel emboldened by that and they saw it as a victory for their global movement.”
Now Trump will be President for a second term, the reproductive rights of women not only in America, but also around the world, are under threat. Tiara Sahar Ataii, an international aid worker for a British charity and writer for Forbes 30 under 30, expressed her worries about how Trump’s stance on reproductive rights could translate over to global policy.
“A really specific way in which a second Trump presidency would impact women around the world would be the extension of the global gag rule,” she says.
The “gag rule,” as defined by the Guttmacher Institute, “prevented foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from using their own, non-U.S. funds to provide abortion services, information, counselling, referrals or advocacy.” The rule, which was expanded under the Trump administration, was rescinded by the Biden administration in 2021.
Prior to the US presidential election, Ataii, who has worked with women in countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen and Afghanistan, said that a potential woman president might “have a really good influence on reproductive rights and would therefore support issues that have been in the past decimated by republicans, such as the global gag rule.”
It should also be noted that Trump has previously supported making IVF free of charge, but has not detailed how he would implement this.
Male violence against women
Trump’s attitudes and comments towards women and girls have been highly publicised. On the #MeToo movement, Trump said in 2018: “It is a very scary time for young men in America, where you can be guilty of something you may not be guilty of… Women are doing great.”
In 2016, a secret video recording was leaked of Trump bragging about groping and kissing women without their consent in 2005. “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women – I just start kissing them,” he said. “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
At least 26 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, including assault, since the 1970s. In May 2023, Trump was also found liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who says that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-90s. In 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that Michael Cohen, formerly Trump’s attorney, had paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in the run-up to the 2016 Presidential election to stop her from discussing an affair with Trump that allegedly took place in 2006. Daniels later claimed that she and Trump had had sex on one occasion and that the encounter was consensual. However, she also claimed that she “blacked out” during the encounter, that she was “shaking” as she dressed afterwards, and that she tried to meet him only in public scenarios in the future. Earlier this year, Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts over falsifying business records related to the hush-money payments to Daniels in 2016. Trump denies all allegations against him.
While it is difficult to measure how a Trump presidency will affect global male violence against women, a rightwing manifesto for a second Trump term called Project 2025 aims to extend the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (widely known as the Mexico City Policy), also rescinded by the Biden Administration, to all U.S. foreign assistance — including gender equality and economic empowerment programs, along with humanitarian aid. This extension would go directly against evidence indicating that women and children in emergencies are often at increased risk of sexual and gender-based violence. However, in his campaign strategy, it is worth noting that Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025.
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump said in a social media post earlier this year. “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
LGBTQIA+ and racial rights
A second Trump administration has promised to rescind federal policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. In particular, their proposed policies would mean transgender people would no longer have access to gender-affirming medical care, will end programmes that “promote… gender transition at any age,” and push for a federal law stating the government doesn’t legally recognise trans people.
Trump’s anti-immigration policies are also cause for concern for women and girls. “Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world,” Trump said at a rally in October, "...from prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions, and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens.”
At a campaign rally in Arizona the same month, Trump said: “When I win on November 5th, the migrant invasion ends and the restoration of our country begins.” He pledged to hire 10,000 more border patrol agents, adding that the US is “now known all throughout the world as an occupied country.”
Women in conflict
We don't yet know how Trump's presidency will impact conflict zones around the world, but judging by his previous foreign policy – including a deal with the Taliban in 2020 to withdraw troops from Afghanistan – many are fearful for how his decisions will impact ongoing conflicts.
Trump has pledged to end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” via a settlement with Russia. "I know Zelensky very well, and I know Putin very well," he said during the presidential debate. "I think it's the US best interest to get this war finished and just get it done, negotiate a deal." Trump gave no details on what this deal would include. The Kremlin has said nothing can be done in 24 hours.
There is also concern about how Trump’s presidency could impact women in war zones in the Middle East, where negotiations are still ongoing. Aid worker Tiara Sahar Ataii says that for the vast majority of women that she has met around the world, their needs are directly intertwined with socioeconomic discrimination. “I had a number of discussions with Afghan women who are female head of households and struggled with not having a male guardian in a country that’s explicitly persecutory of women,” Ataii said. “But the women I talked to were really clear that they were poor, that they had become poorer as a result of increased sanctions.”
“We know globally, that where there’s not enough money, it’s always women who eat less, it’s always women’s education that becomes the bottom priority as opposed to boy’s education,” said the aid worker. Ataii said, referencing Trump pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, which caused what she called, “absolute freefall in the Iranian economy,” and has been “catastrophic for women in Iran.”
These categories are not all-encompassing of what a Trump presidency will mean for women around the globe – only time will tell. But today, women around the world are preparing for a second Trump Administration in the United States and its resounding global impact.
