Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa

On 26 October 2005, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa received its 15th ratification, meaning the Protocol entered into force on 25 November 2005. This marked a milestone in the protection and promotion of women’s rights in Africa, creating new rights for women in terms of international standards. Solidarity for African Women’s Rights, a coalition of groups across Africa in which the Africa Regional Office of Equality Now plays a leading role, has been campaigning for the ratification, domestication and popularization of the Protocol since April 2004 after learning that the pace of ratification was very slow and concern was raised that it might take years for the Protocol to come into force unless member states were held publicly and consistently accountable for their promises to ratify it.

This groundbreaking Protocol, for the first time in international law, explicitly sets forth the reproductive right of women to medical abortion when pregnancy results from rape or incest or when the continuation of pregnancy endangers the health or life of the mother. In another first, the Protocol explicitly calls for the legal prohibition of female genital mutilation, and prohibits the abuse of women in advertising and pornography. The Protocol sets forth a broad range of economic and social welfare rights for women. The rights of particularly vulnerable groups of women, including widows, elderly women, disabled women and “women in distress,” which includes poor women, women from marginalized populations groups, and pregnant or nursing women in detention are specifically recognized. (Full text of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, pdf 145KB.)

The countries that have ratified the Protocol as of 26 February 2008 are twenty-three: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Comoros, Djibouti, The Gambia, Ghana, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo and Zambia.

Equality Now’s Campaign on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa

In January 2003, The LAW Project and the Africa Regional Office of Equality Now convened a strategy meeting of activists in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the draft Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. The meeting grew out of prior consultations with FEMNET, the African Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS), Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), and other regional and national groups that had been working toward the passage of a strong Protocol for the promotion of women’s rights.

The coalition that emerged from this meeting with a collective mark-up of the draft Protocol engaged in an intensive advocacy campaign to ensure the inclusion in the Protocol of the strongest language possible for the protection and promotion of women’s rights. Immediately prior to the Meeting of Experts and the African Union Ministerial Meeting that took place in Addis Ababa in March 2003, Equality Now’s Africa Office convened another meeting of women’s rights activists and organizations in Addis Ababa, in order to coordinate a strategic plan for advocacy and to ensure that the substantive provisions of the draft Protocol were strengthened and adopted during the course of the experts’ and ministerial meetings. These advocacy efforts had a dramatic impact on the draft Protocol, which was significantly improved during the course of the meeting.

Even though the Protocol has now come into force through the efforts of Solidarity for African Women’s Rights and others, the campaign continues for ratification by all African Union member states, and for the domestication and popularization of the Protocol. Please distribute information about the campaign widely and mobilize your friends and colleagues to support it.

Women and girls around the world need your help.
SUPPORT EQUALITY NOW

New York Nairobi London