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For decades, the U.S. spearheaded global efforts to combat gender-based violence. In President Trump's first term, Ivanka Trump led the charge. In the Biden administration, ending violence against women was seen as key to stopping a root cause of migration. Then Trump took office again. And as NPR's Gabrielle Emanuel reports, when U.S. foreign aid was slashed last year, efforts to fight gender-based violence were hit hard.
GABRIELLE EMANUEL, BYLINE: Over 30 years ago, Lisseth urged her younger sister to go to the police in Honduras. Her sister, who was pregnant, was being abused by her husband.
LISSETH: (Through interpreter) She did that, but when she returned home, she experienced terrible moments for having reported the aggressor.
EMANUEL: That's when Lisseth teamed up with a few other women and started one of Honduras' first women's shelters. It soon became her life mission. She worked for policy change. She opened more women's shelters. Then Lisseth says, this past year, much of what she built crumbled. NPR agreed to only use her middle name because she fears speaking out might undermine future financial support. Lisseth shared the story of a 22-year-old woman who loved painting intricate geometric patterns called mandalas.
LISSETH: (Through interpreter) She always wanted to paint mandalas, mandalas, mandalas, in many colors. She said that's how she wanted her life - with everything colorful.
EMANUEL: She had come to the shelter after being abused by her partner.
LISSETH: (Through interpreter) She had been assaulted not only psychologically but also physically and sexually. He has weapons, so it was very easy for him to kill her. And he told her that.
EMANUEL: The woman stayed at the shelter for a while, but Lisseth's shelters have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past year because of U.S. foreign aid cuts. Lisseth needed beds for other women arriving with kids and physical injuries. Lisseth remembers the 22-year-old begging to stay.
LISSETH: (Through interpreter) She would say, put me to sleep sitting up in any spot you want. Or if you want, give me food once a day. But don't let me go. I can't go back.
EMANUEL: Lisseth had already cut back on medical care, psychological support, legal services. These days, they can't afford diapers and formula for the children who arrive with their mothers. And in the line of bunk beds, multiple kids already pile into the same bed as their mom.
LISSETH: (Through interpreter) She had to go. What we did was find her a support network through a church, so they could place her somewhere else.
EMANUEL: And that's a better outcome than most. Lisseth says her organization has had to turn away more than a hundred women and children this past year. She says it feels cruel to turn them away, especially as the number of women being killed in Honduras goes up.
LISSETH: (Through interpreter) Instead of opening more places for more women, we're reducing them. It is hard. Hard.
(Speaking Spanish).
BEATRIZ GARCIA NICE: You can consider them representative of what is happening.
EMANUEL: That's Beatriz Garcia Nice. She's an analyst at the Washington, D.C., think tank the Stimson Center.
GARCIA NICE: The United States was the leader in supporting this work.
EMANUEL: Garcia Nice says the term gender-based violence got swept up in the anti-DEI bent of the second Trump administration.
GARCIA NICE: It was just literally getting rid of anything that made a reference to gender.
EMANUEL: Garcia Nice says the impact is very real. One in three women experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, the World Health Organization reports. And this used to be a bipartisan issue.
GARCIA NICE: In many countries, it has become an issue of the left. It's not a human rights issue anymore. It's kind of radioactive.
EMANUEL: The State Department wrote in a statement to NPR that the U.S. continued to provide lifesaving assistance to women and children last year while not supporting the radical ideologies of Biden-era programs that deny biological reality. An October 2025 U.N. report found that at that time, more than 40% of organizations working on violence against women and girls had shut down or scaled back significantly in the past year as a result of funding cuts. In Honduras, Lisseth says she sees no glimmers of hope.
LISSETH: (Through interpreter) We believe that this year, the crisis will deepen.
EMANUEL: She says many women, just like her sister, will need refuge and have fewer and fewer places to turn. Gabrielle Emanuel, NPR News.
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