The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa

The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa was written to reformulate human rights protections in Africa to better reflect and incorporate women’s experiences. According to this briefing paper on the Protocol and on advocacy for its ratification and implementation, "its significance lies in its affirmation of women’s reproductive rights as human rights, its articulation of women’s rights within an African regional context, and in the legal and moral pressure it exerts over the governments and policymakers responsible for its implementation."

The briefing paper offers suggestions for women's health and rights advocates within and beyond Africa. It provides advocacy strategies to help African women use the Protocol to exercise their reproductive rights, and suggests ways that governments can implement the protocol’s provisions. The paper suggests to advocates outside Africa that the Protocol could be useful for people who are seeking to establish similar guarantees.

According to the briefing, the Protocol assumes heightened importance in consideration of the Sub-Saharan region's women’s health indicators, particularly reproductive health. These indicators include the highest number of HIV-positive women and the highest infant, maternal, and HIV-related death rates worldwide. The advocacy described in the briefing focuses on using the Protocol to pressure governments to address the underlying social, political, and health-care issues that contribute to the state of women’s health throughout the continent.

Key women's rights provisions of the Protocol, as enumerated by the briefing paper, are:

1. Provisions Relating to Reproductive Health and
   Reproductive Autonomy, including reproductive health services, abortion, HIV/AIDS, and sexual education.
2. Provisions Relating to Violence Against Women, including bodily integrity - protection from physical and verbal violence, social and cultural practices harmful to women, and sexual harassment.
3. Provisions Relating to Rights within Marriage, including a minimum age for marriage and widows' rights.

The countries that have ratified the Protocol as of January 5 2006 are Benin, Cape Verde, The Comoros, Djibouti, The Gambia, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Togo. The briefing contains information that can be used by advocates to raise public awareness of women’s rights through undertaking the following initiatives:

• disseminate information to the public on the women’s rights guaranteed by the protocol and the state’s obligations to women that result from those guarantees;
• stage information campaigns in national and local media outlets to reach and educate a broad spectrum of citizens;
• distribute information on the protocol to organisations, lawyers, judges, law students, policymakers, and other government officials;
• lobby governments to ratify the Protocol and enact and implement laws that enforce its guarantees;
• bring cases before national courts asking for redress of violations of the protocol; and
• conduct trainings on the role of the Protocol in Human Rights protection, including civil society, women at the grassroots level, public officials, and members of the legal community.