“The relevance and the urgency of ratifying the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa no longer needs to be proven. Women in Africa continue to suffer all forms of violence and are circumcised daily in Mali. This raises the question of whether women are human beings. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a health issue. How many homes are broken up because couples do not know how to talk about a problem linked to their sexuality? Have we made the link between maternal and infant mortality, and FGM in Africa? Thousands of women and girls suffer each day as a result of this traditional practice. FGM remains a health problem, a problem of sexual and reproductive rights of women and their male sexual partners. It has untold economic, medical and social consequences. We urge African Union heads of states to turn their attention to the need for the urgent and immediate ratification of the Protocol at the Summit. Counting on your sensitivity to women’s empowerment and well being, we hope that you will ratify the Protocol on Women’s rights in Africa.”

La ratification urgente du Protocole à la Charte africaine relatif aux droits des femmes: un sauvegarde des droits des femmes au Mali

“Voici ma petite contribution sur les raisons de la necessité d'une ratification immediate La pertinence et l'urgence de ratifier le protocole additif à la charte africaine des droits de l'homme et des peuples relatifs aux droits de la femme en Afrique n'est plus à démontrer. Les femmes continuent à subir toutes les formes de violence en Afrique et sont excisées chaque jour au Mamli. On doit se demander si la femme est elle un être humain. Les MGF se posent en terme de santé, combien de ménages sont disloqués suite au silence d'un couple qui ne sait comment parler d'un problème lié à la sexualité ? Avons nous établi le rapport entre le taux de mortalité maternelle et néonatale et les mutilations génitales féminines en Afrique ? Bref, des milliers de femmes et de filles souffrent tous les jours à cause d'une pratique soutenue par la tradition. Les MGF demeurent un problème de santé, de droit sexuel et reproductif pour la femme, partenaire sexuel de l'homme. les conséquences économiques, médicales et sociales restent inestimables. Nous exhortons les chefs d'état à se pencher sur la necessité d'une ratification immédiate par les états membres de l'union Africaine lors du sommet. Espérant sur votre sensibilité à l'égard des femmes pour les épanouissement et le bien, nous pouvons compter sur vous pour une ratification du protocole additionnel sur les droits des femmes en Afrique.”

- Kadidia Sidibe Aoudou Maiga, Chair of AMSOPT (l'Association Malienne pour le suivi et l'Orientation des Pratiques Traditionnelles), Mali ([email protected])

It took almost a decade (eight years to be precise) for African leaders to finally agree on a text and adopt the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa at the Second Ordinary Summit of the African Union held in Maputo in July 2003. The Protocol is a legal framework for African women to use in the exercise of their rights. It is comprehensive in that it addresses various concerns of women of different ages and various conditions based on the realities at the ground. For that reason it is welcomed and celebrated by all African women.

Before it finally came onto the agenda of the heads of states meeting last year, several obstacles that inhibited completion of this important document had to be overcome. The first experts meeting convened by the OAU (now the African Union) in November 2001 brought together officials who in the majority regrettably had little legal or gender expertise. As a result, the draft document that came out of that meeting had serious gaps and was of a lower standard compared to other comparable international law instruments such as the Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which most African states, had already ratified.

The experts meeting also failed to reach agreement on some aspects of the draft. A future date was set to finalize the outstanding provisions, but this meeting and others called by the OAU/African Union to achieve this purpose had to be cancelled for lack of a quorum. Activists around Africa saw two problems: the document was weak and did not adequately address the specific issues relating to African women, and it was not moving forward due to the repeated lack of a quorum, which expressed the low priority accorded to women, although they comprise over 50% of Africa's population, by the very governments they have voted into office.

Activists then decided it was time to refocus their efforts. Various consultations were held around Africa among civil society organizations. Equality Now, an international human rights organization, joined the process in July 2002 at a meeting convened by the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Nairobi. Equality Now also consulted with the African Women's Development and Communications Network (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 were most actively engaged in working toward the passage of a strong Protocol for the protection and promotion of women's rights.

In January 2003, Equality Now convened a strategy meeting of activists in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, proceeding with the meeting although the governmental meeting it was scheduled to coincide with was again cancelled for lack of a quorum. The meeting discussed, reviewed and strengthened the text of the draft Protocol through dialogue among women's rights organizations from across Africa and produced a collective mark-up, which was widely distributed across the continent for promotion with national governments. The coalition of activists also lobbied African governments to send delegates with legal and human rights expertise from their capitals to the scheduled meeting of the African Union.

Equality Now was nominated to take on a coordinating role and to work closely with the Secretariat of the African Union to encourage it to facilitate a successful meeting. In response to the campaign several countries held national consultation meetings, with the participation of civil society organizations, to review the mark-up. Several countries also brought members from civil society as part of their delegation to the experts meeting.

All in all, countries were much better prepared when they came for the experts meeting in March 2003 and many were also open to improving the existing document. Immediately prior to the Meeting of Experts and the African Union Ministerial Meeting that took place in Addis Ababa, Equality Now's Africa Office convened another meeting of women's rights activists and organizations, in order to coordinate a strategic plan for advocacy and to ensure that the substantive provisions of the draft Protocol were strengthened 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. Subsequently, On July 11, 2003, the African Union adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa.

The campaign by activists for The Protocol on the Rights of African Women represents a successful model of cooperation among national, regional and international women's NGOs that led to concrete results, namely the strengthening of the final text of The Protocol with regard to a number of significant provisions enumerating fundamental women's rights and its adoption by the African Union. The African Union's Commissioner Djinnit Said also saw the campaign around the Protocol as an excellent model for collaboration between the African Union and civil society organizations and said as much in a meeting the African Union hosted earlier in the year to consult with African civil society organizations.

One year after its adoption, however, only 30 countries have signed the Protocol and only one (the Comoros) has ratified it. It needs 15 ratifications to enter into force. Until then these rights remain hypothetical! All the past efforts by civil society will have been wasted if the Protocol is not ratified. And the majority of women in Africa will continue to be deprived of protection under international law of many of their basic rights. For this reason, activists have once again pooled their resources, energy and focus to urge governments to honour their commitments to uphold women's rights by ratifying the Protocol as soon as possible, ideally by the heads of state summit in July 2004.

Women around Africa are daily monitoring the website of the African Union taking note of which of their leaders are true to their commitments. Women's organizations and human rights organizations in Africa have launched national campaigns to lobby their respective governments engaging in dialogue with the relevant ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, Gender and in some cases even the heads of states offices to impress upon them the importance of ratifying the Protocol without delay.

With a concerted effort, together we can achieve ratification. That is why activists in Guinea-Conakry are working hard to sensitize parliamentarians and decision-makers through workshops and meetings in an effort to win support for the ratification of the Protocol, groups in Kenya are engaging dialogue with several ministries (Ministry of Gender, Sports and Culture; Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to sensitize them and discuss the process of ratification and the need to speed up the ratification process. In Mali women are planning to hold information and sensitization forums with Parliamentarians on the Protocol as well as mobilizing women's organizations to make a declaration urging the government to ratify the Protocol. In South Africa plans are underway to inform the Office of the President and the Department of Foreign Affairs and the State Law advisors as well as the Parliamentary Commissions on Justice, quality of life and the Status of Women on the Protocol and discuss the obstacles to the early ratification of the Protocol. And these are just some of the activities planned around the continent to press for ratification. It is imperative that governments heed our urgent call for women to be guaranteed equal status to men and equal protection of their rights.

The Protocol for the Rights of Women in Africa as it stands now is a piece of paper without any force. By ratifying it, governments will be taking the first step towards recognizing the equal worth of women. Implementation will then be critical. The Protocol makes many equality advances for women under international law, including affording special protection for vulnerable groups such as widows, the disabled and those from marginalised groups. It is only by protecting and promoting the rights of all its peoples that Africa will be able to access its full resources and lead the continent to prosperity. The Beijing +10 review process offers African governments an opportunity to demonstrate their determination to lead their peoples' to the path to development. One concrete benchmark on this path to development is the seriousness that they give to the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. If they ratify it now they will have a concrete achievement to bring to the table later this year when the continent comes together for the Beijing +10 conference, as a gesture of recognition for the human rights of women as a priority agenda of the continent.

We call on African leaders to honor their commitments to women and ACT NOW to ratify the Protocol!

* Faiza Jama Mohamed works for Equality Now.

* Please send comments to

The archives of the regional southern Africa office of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, UNIFEM, has some precious photographs that offer a record of women's life experiences in the year 2003. In its own way, each image shows the very different ways women across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region endure a world in which poverty has increasingly determined the extent to which women are able to make choices. In one of the pictures four women in their late 20s and early 30s sit side by side, enjoying a moment of sisterhood in the African sunshine.

A shared experience connects them. They are all determined and gallant activists in the movement of women living with HIV and AIDS, agitating for their rights. Hope glows from their faces. Hope of an imminent victory in a struggle that seeks to set women free from all forms of oppression and injustice. But no amount of creative artistry could have enabled the photographer's lens to capture the story behind Angeline Chiwetani's glasses.

In 1999, the working mother of two young boys learned to be tough. She had hit the hardest of times. Her husband, HIV positive and without treatment, needed constant looking-after. Chiwetani drafted a letter of resignation and handed it over to her employers.

Moving away from a job that provided the family its sole income put Chiwetani's life at its darkest ever. For 12 long and lonely months she was miserable and knew little else but pain, anger and disappointment.

Women and the stigma of AIDS

"My marriage had problems. My husband used to go beyond our bedroom and have sexual relations with other women. I told my family lets talk and adjust the situation and they said I was trying to rule the roost, "says Chiwetani.

"No one came to see my husband except for my relatives and friends. My in laws, his brother and sisters labelled me a city woman. They meant I could go and sleep with any guy, " says Chiwetani, pointing to a kind of isolation that women caring for HIV positive husbands have repeatedly voiced.

Thousands of HIV positive women across the sub-Saharan African region daily suffer the nasty effects of gossip, ugly name-calling and being labelled everything from whore to witches. Their collective experiences show the extent to which addressing AIDS related stigma remains a critical priority for any actions aimed at cutting back the impacts of the epidemic on African women. Eliminating the segregation, isolation, emotional and psychological violence HIV positive women like Chiwetani and their families bear.

Women's resistance to AIDS gains momentum

Chiwetani has become a leader, organizing support and care for HIV positive women and their families and communities. The last four years have seen Chiwetani develop strength and resilience. Her boys, now aged 12 and seven, are at school and their grades have been encouraging. She was recently appointed the Executive Director of the Network for Zimbabwe Positive Women (NZPW+), a not for profit group that supports more than 3000 HIV positive women across the country in various ways.

NZPW+ is supported by UNIFEM, through a special fund aimed at empowering HIV positive women to put pressure on public institutions to safeguard the rights of especially women living with HIV and AIDS.

"We need to get what we need to save ourselves", she says, running off her fingers some of the resources that HIV positive and other women need to secure empowerment and autonomy, "Education is key, so are jobs, access to treatments for the illnesses HIV positive women face and above all social and legal support".

She says a critical factor in providing support is to create a public and private environment that enables HIV positive women to live with their status. " I cannot emphasis how important it is to have stigma reduction programmes. This allows us to come out in the open and talk to some one who can comfort you and help you get over the stress, someone to share with. I opened up because when I got into this situation someone opened to me. I think I would be dead. There is no one to talk to you can get stressed up and have problems."

AIDS and Women's failing rights

Women and girls account for 58 percent of those living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan African countries like Zimbabwe that are deeply affected by the pandemic. In some instances girls aged 15 to 19 years are four to seven times more likely to be infected with HIV than boys within the same age group.

This reflects the low and oppressed status of women in Zimbabwe. While Zimbabwe's women have paper rights enshrined in the National Gender Policy, a fracture exists between policy and lived reality. The AIDS pandemic has not only uncovered the very deeply ingrained sexual abuse, gender violence and impoverishment that especially poor black women experience, but it has also served to reinforce and provide new avenues of discriminating women and showing that a critical gap between proclamations and real change remains.

Sexist attitudes and sinister patriarchal practices that privilege men have kept women and poor, rural women in particular, in positions of deep disadvantage. Not only has this made women more vulnerable to HIV infection, but also forced women and girls into working as unpaid, unrecognized home nurses carrying the burden of community based care programmes.

The phenomenal sacrifice women of the sub-region make in nursing the AIDS affected, without appropriate training, equipment, food, water, firewood, money, medications or recognition, is a stunning sign of service. Yet it is also a form of exploitation that reveals the marginalisation of women and girls in societies that accept that women are unequal citizens who should be made to accept labour: washing soiled bedding and clothing, whipping wounds and sores, burying the dead without coffins, caring without knowledge or information or protection has led to a trauma so deep it is difficult to see recovery of families and communities from the burden.

AIDS, Women and the Family

As her husband's health deteriorated Chiwetani sent messages to his family requesting support. The harsh advice that came back was: "Go and stay in the village, near a grave," she says. The family did not want, in the event of her husband's death, the responsibility of moving his body from the city to the village where the funeral was bound to be.

On July 23 2000, while the rest of Zimbabwe was consumed by the headiness surrounding the constitutional reform debate and parliamentary elections, Chiwetani's husband died. "It happened in our house. When I sent a message to his brother the words that came back were "Tell her I am waiting for my wife to finish the laundry", she says.

In a short space of time Chiwetani had gone from wife to widow. No sooner had her husband's coffin been lowered into the grave that new difficulties emerged. A tug-of-war surrounding property believed to belong to the deceased put further strain on already mangled family relations.

HIV and AIDS? The Experience of Widows

"When I went home for the funeral, there was a lot of talk about how I had killed my husband and made him sick", explains Chiwetani. "My husband had amended his Will and reversed certain sections. The Will had been stamped by his lawyers. The family was not very happy that the children and I had been left with everything.”

Bitter inheritance disputes, that often leave widows and their children dispossessed and may even result in fatalities, have been the subject of extensive research by regional feminist networks such as the Women and Law in Southern Africa Research and Education Trust, WLSA. The network, along with women's rights groups across the continent, has lobbied for legislative reforms that protect the property and inheritance rights of widows and children. AIDS Activists such as Chiwetani have recently added their weight behind the demands for just inheritance laws and legal practice before both civil and traditional courts.

"Zimbabwe's inheritance laws are very clear: widows and children are the rightful heirs to the deceased's estate, where there is a Will, its contents are meant to be respected,” says Arnold Tsunga, Co-ordinator of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR). "Yet more than half of all inheritance disputes have women and girls as complainants. This is partly due to the prejudice women and children encounter through sexist legal practice and customary law that favours men as heirs."

Chiwetani couldn't agree more. "Wills are very important. They prevent people from grabbing property from widows at the time of need,” she says about the strategy that worked for her and her children. "Now that I have my life and our network is growing, my main worry is treatment for the women on whose behalf I have dedicated my life to.”

Women and AIDS Treatment Campaigns

With more than half of the people living with HIV and AIDS being women, treatment campaigns can no longer afford to sideline women's demands for appropriate care through service centres that meet the very specific needs of women.

As the UN's World Health Organisation rolls out its "3 by 5" campaign, which aims to have 3 million people on treatment by 2005, the momentum steadily gathering in the region to demand treatments will need to ensure that a significant number of the beneficiaries of treatment are women and girls living with the HIV.

"Treatment is something to do at all costs," says Jephias Mudondo, director of the Family AIDS Counselling Trust (FACT). "People are dying unnecessarily. The solution is political commitment. Commitment with action.”

"Women are more affected in a lot of ways. Even in infection by older men. Married men go out and get infected. A married woman is the most vulnerable person. When positive they carry all the burden. Poverty does not have access to treatment in the country. We have a programme of volunteers taking place. Of 600 volunteers only 10 are men. The rest are women. Community care impacts on them. When they get ill who do they get support from?"

AIDS and the Ballot Box

It has been both difficult and painful to comprehend the world's impassivity when millions of women and girls continue to die of AIDS that has come about as a consequence of gender discrimination. Any other form of oppression would have caused massive outrage. The race, sex and class factors that have for the past two and a half decades allowed African women to die slowly, one at a time, from the casualty and shame of AIDS cannot go ignored.

On the eve of the National Conference on HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe that ran June 15 to 18 women's rights activists showed their collective indignation at the deeply rooted gender and human rights violations that have allowed the full horror of this mammoth plague to emerge. Not providing early, affordable and accessible treatment, along with the resources so necessary for the disease's elimination has proved to be extremely costly and damaging.

As Zimbabwe moves closer to Parliamentary Elections planned for March 2005, which coincides with the 10th anniversary of the Beijing Fourth World Conference of Women, AIDS is steadily graining momentum as an issue of governance and democracy. Political will to tackle gender segregation in the context of AIDS will determine which way the millions of women whose lives have been rocked by the disease will cross their voting cards. After all, women command 52% of the vote.

* Isabella Matambanadzo is Zimbabwean Feminist Activist. She is currently the Executive Director of the Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) a women's pressure group that since its establishment in 1990 is committed to empowering women to make informed choices and decisions.

* Please send comments to

The adoption of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women by the Conference of the Heads of State and Government (the Conference) at the African Union (AU) meeting in Maputo in July 2003 was undeniably an important event in the history of African women's struggle for the recognition of their rights.

This Protocol, the fruits of exemplary collaboration between the African Commission for Human and People's Rights (the Commission) and civil society organisations, was identified as a priority for the promotion and protection of the rights of African women during a workshop in March 1995 on women's rights, organised by the Commission, in collaboration with Women in Law and Development in Africa/Femmes, Droit et Développement en Afrique (WiLDAF/FeDDAF) and the International Commission of Jurists, based in Geneva.

The workshop recommended that a protocol on women's rights should be established and a Special Rapporteur on the rights of women should be nominated. The Conference of the former Organisation of African Unity (OAU) mandated the Commission to initiate and coordinate the process of developing a preliminary draft of the protocol. A working group was put in place to propose a text. Since the beginning, the process has been very participatory.

Civil society organisations mobilized themselves to enrich the first version written by the working group. This mobilization increased during the process, as more and more organisations became interested in all steps of the development of the protocol. The numerous ups and downs that punctuated the process sometimes worried civil society members. The long wait between the first and the second meetings, due to successive postponement of the second one, and in the absence of a quorum, was one of the most difficult moments.

However, the lobbying efforts of civil society and the determination of the officers of the African Union responsible for the file resulted in the second meeting of experts. This was followed by a meeting of ministers implicated in the process, who succeeded in registering the protocol on the agenda of the Council of Ministers in July 2003. Eight years after the beginning of the process, the protocol was thus finally adopted by Heads of State.

I relive the joy manifested by the lobby of women's organisations at the announcement of the protocol's adoption, and salute the cooperation that coalesced between certain commissioners and these women. But nobody was fooled! Once the protocol was adopted, there remained many equally important steps to take: to obtain the necessary signatures and ratifications for its entry into force and to respond to the challenge of its effective implementation.

One year on, where are we at in the process? Thirty signatures and one ratification had been registered by 15 June 2004, less than three weeks before the next AU Heads of State and Government Conference. Twelve of the signatory countries are in West Africa, eight in East African and five in southern Africa. Lobbying work must continue in all the regions of Africa, particularly in Central and North Africa, where only three and two signatures, respectively, have been registered. It is important to note that we are still far, very far, from the 15 ratifications necessary for the entry into force of the protocol. And the question of its ratification must absolutely, in one-way or another, be added to the agenda of the July 2004 Summit in Addis-Ababa, in the interests of women, African populations and the African Union.

But why is ratification of the protocol so important?

For African women, the entry into force of the protocol will be an essential step towards the recognition of their rights, the daily violations of which are the source of immense suffering. The protocol will offer, following the example of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) a legal framework of reference, allowing diverse actors, as well as the population, to daily work towards the effective respect of women's rights. But, in addition to CEDAW, the legal framework of the protocol reflects specific violations to African women. Its preamble justifies the adoption of the protocol by the existence of discriminations against women and harmful traditional practices, despite commitments taken by States at regional and international levels. It also expresses leaders' formal support to the principle of equality between men and women.

In addition to these declarations, the protocol contains provisions to respond to problems as crucial as the multiple violations of rights in marital relations, violence and grave risks to the life, physical and moral integrity, and security of women and girls, the pressing reality of which we cannot deny in our societies. The entry into force of the protocol offers an invaluable framework to end violations against civilian, refugee and combatant women and children, particularly girls, in periods of conflict, and to uphold the challenge of peace in Africa, a condition sine qua non of development.

The fight against traditional practices harmful to the health of women and girls needs the protocol, which provides guidelines for eliminating them. Economic and social rights as vital as the right to health, including reproductive health, to education and to inheritance rights for widows and girls, which are daily transgressed out of ignorance or deliberately, would be better protected if actions taken could rely on adequate measures, such as those recommended in the protocol. Definitively, there is no doubt that, in the interests of hundreds of thousands of women and girls in Africa, the protocol on women's rights must be ratified as quickly as possible.

For African populations and societies, the absence of a legal framework of reference to fight against violations of women's rights currently constitutes a real handicap for the optimal participation of women in the development of their countries and of Africa, even though they constitute more than 50% of the population of the continent.

Finally, the credibility of the AU, which demonstrated its commitment to promote women's participation and gender equality, notably through parity in the AU Commission and in the equitable representation of Judges of the African Court for Human and People's Rights, rests on proving its coherence and consistency by implementing the protocol without delay. By doing so, the AU and its member States will show the world that, for them also, women's rights are truly an integral part of human rights, and that they are determined to promote and protect them without any discrimination.

The imminent entry into force of the protocol will mark, in sum, a decisive step towards entrenching a culture of respect and exercise of the human rights of women in African societies. For all these reasons, every human rights defender, man or woman, should feel concerned and lobby governmental and parliamentary authorities in order to convince them to ratify the protocol on women's rights and take steps for its effective implementation. Our mothers, our daughters and our sisters, including those who are rarely accustomed to demand their rights, cry for help in a meaningful silence, but are often too quickly assimilated into resignation. It depends on each person to ensure that the voice of the voiceless are finally heard by those who are responsible for the fate of African populations.

* Kafui Adjamagbo-Johnson is the Coordinator of Women in Law and Development in Africa, West Africa

* Please send comments to

* For the French version of this article, please click on the link below.

L'adoption du Protocole à la Charte Africaine des Droits de l'Homme et des Peuples relatif aux Droits de la Femme par la Conférence des Chefs d'États et de Gouvernement (la Conférence) de l'Union Africaine (UA) réunie à Maputo en juillet 2003 fût sans conteste un événement important dans l'histoire de la lutte des femmes africaines pour la reconnaissance de leurs droits.

Ce protocole, fruit d'une collaboration exemplaire entre la Commission Africaine des Droits de l'Homme et des Peuples (la Commission) et les organisations de la société civile a été ressenti comme une priorité pour la promotion et la protection des droits des femmes africaines au cours d'un atelier en mars 1995 organisé par la Commission en collaboration avec le WiLDAF/FeDDAF (Women in Law and Development in Africa/Femmes, Droit et Développement en Afrique) et la Commission Internationale de Juristes basé à Genève.

Key facts and statistics on women in Africa

* Of the 33.6 million people living with HIV/AIDS around the world today, 14.8 million are women. In Africa, 12-13 women are currently infected for every 10 men. Among adults infected by HIV, women account for 55 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa.

* The financial and material dependence on men means that many women in Africa cannot control when, with whom, and in what circumstances they have sex. New initiatives that target economic empowerment of African women and increased sensitization of women on HIV/AIDS transmission are expected to contribute towards reversing this trend.

* In sub-saharan Africa, women comprise 60 per cent of the informal sector, provide about 70 per cent of total agricultural labour and produce about 90 per cent of the food. However, they receive less than 10 per cent of total credit to farmers.

* Women in Africa on average work 50 per cent longer than men.

* Political representation of women in Africa is on the increase. South Africa’s parliament this year registered a 10 per cent increase in women representation from 120 to 131. The overall proportion of women parliamentarians has increased to 32.8 per cent from 30 per cent in 1999. Rwanda, with 49 per cent women representation, has the highest number of women parliamentarians in the world.

* African women are increasingly playing a critical role in peace building efforts and conflict resolution in Africa. Women are developing peace initiatives at all levels and building strategic alliances on issues of common concern such as violence against women, child soldiers and disarmament.

* Even though an estimated 50 per cent of Africa’s women are illiterate, the greatest improvements in literacy rates for women since 1990 have occurred in sub-saharan Africa where literacy rates have risen from 41 per cent in 1990 to an estimated 54 per cent in 2000.

Links to background articles:

* Indigenous Women’s Rights

http://www.cpsu.org.uk/downloads/Lucy%20Mulenkei.pdf

* Inheritance Rights

http://www.hrlawgroup.org/initiatives/inheritance_rights/default.asp

* Sexual Rights and the Commission on Human Rights
http://www.whrnet.org/docs/issue-sexualrightscommission.html

* Marriage

http://www.whrnet.org/docs/issue-marriage.html

* Gender based violence and human rights

http://www.whrnet.org/docs/issue-genderviolence.html

* Globalisation and women

http://www.twnside.org.sg/women.htm

* Women’s rights and land rights
http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v7/v7i4a1.htm

* Gender and education
http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1247.html
http://www.id21.org/

* Health reforms and women’s health
http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC14862

* Securing indigenous women’s rights and participation
http://www.unifem.org/filesconfirmed/2/355_at_a_glance_indigenous_women…

* Women in Law and Development in Africa, West Africa/
Femmes, Droit et Développement en Afrique (WiLDAF-FeDDAF) Afrique de l'Ouest
http://www.wildaf-ao.org

* Women and water http://www.unifem.org/filesconfirmed/2/351_at_a_glance_water_rights.pdf

* Women and the MDG’s
http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC13576

* Violence against women and HIV/AIDS http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC14547

* Trade liberalisation and African women http://www.siyanda.org/static/genta_tradeafrica.htm

* Sexual and reproductive health
http://www.planetwire.org/details/4513

* Sexualities and sexual rights
http://www.whrnet.org/docs/issue-sexualities.html

* Gender, rights and water privatisation
http://www.un-instraw.org/en/news2.phtml?id=785

* Polygamy
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=24300
* The Optional Protocol on African Women's Human Rights: Does if protect our rights?
http://static.highbeam.com/f/femnetnews/january012002/theoptionalprotoc…

* States' obligation to make rights a reality
http://web.amnesty.org/aidoc/aidoc_pdf.nsf/Index/ACT770492004ENGLISH/$F…

Links to women’s organisations

* Abantu for Development
http://www.abantu.org/

* African Gender Institute
http://www.uct.ac.za/org/agi

* Association for Women’s Rights in Development
http://www.awid.org

* Africa Women’s Media Centre
http://www.awmc.com/

* Agenda
http://www.agenda.org.za/

* Association of African Women Scholars
http://www.iupui.edu/~aaws/

* Commission for Gender Equality
http://www.cge.org.za/

* Equality Now
http://www.equalitynow.org/

* Fahamu - learning for change
http://www.fahamu.org/
http://www.fahamu.org.za/

* Femnet
http://www.femnet.or.ke/

* Flame
http://flamme.org/

* Global Fund for Women
http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/

* International Lesbian and Gay Association
http://www.ilga.org/

* International Women’s Tribune Centre
http://www.iwtc.org/

* ISIS – Women’s International Cross-Cultural Exchange
http://www.isis.or.ug

* Organisation of Women Writers of Africa
http://www.owwa.org/

* Pambazuka News
http://www.pambazuka.org/

* Peacewomen
http://www.peacewomen.org

* Unifem
http://www.unifem.undp.org/

* Saving Women’s Lives
http://www.savingwomenslives.org

* Women’s E-News
http://www.womensenews.org

* Women’s Human Rights Net
http://whrnet.org

* Women of Uganda Network (Wougnet)
http://www.wougnet.org/

* Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network
http://www.zwrcn.org.zw/

SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN ON THE PROTOCOL TO THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES' RIGHTS ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA

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**SUPPORT THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA: SIGN AN ONLINE PETITION**
http://www.pambazuka.org/petition/petition.php?id=1

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"I urge all African States to ratify the Protocol immediately; because African women's rights cannot be postponed as any human rights cannot be postponed."
Graça Machel
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"I am hopeful that all African Union member states will ratify the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa in the same spirit and with the same commitment they have adopted and are using to implement the gender component of the Statute of the AU, demonstrated by the encouraging example of appointing women to fill 50% of the seats on the African Commission."
Navanethem Pillay, South African judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC)
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Visit:

http://www.pambazuka.org/petition/petition.php?id=1

to sign the petition urging African states to ratify the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Once you have signed online remember to confirm your signature through an email that will be sent to you.

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CONTENTS

1. Unfinished Business - African Leaders Must Act Now to ratify The Protocol on the Rights of Women

The Protocol for the Rights of Women in Africa as it stands now is a piece of paper without any force, points out FAIZA JAMA MOHAMED. Even though the campaign by activists for the text of The Protocol on the Rights of African Women represented a successful model of cooperation among national, regional and international women's NGOs the rights it represent remain hypothetical until it is ratified.

Full article: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=22726

2. A plea for ratification

By ratifying The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa the preservation of African values is placed with women, "the custodians of legends and traditions known in our time for their unending fight for peace, liberty, dignity, justice and solidarity". ZEINAB KAMIL ALI believes that this is argument enough to encourage the Heads of States to emulate the Republic of Comoros in ratifying the Protocol.

Full article: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=22732

3. The entry into force of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa: A challenge for Africa and women

The entry into force of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa will be an important step towards entrenching the human rights of women. But KAFUI ADJAMAGBO-JOHNSON says that it is important to note that it is a long way to the 15 ratifications necessary for the entry into force of the protocol. “Every human rights defender, man or woman, should feel concerned and lobby governmental and parliamentary authorities in order to convince them to ratify the protocol on women's rights and take steps for its effective implementation.”

Full article: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=22721

4. African states: Equal to the task?

HANNAH FORSTER looks at the background and scope of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, highlighting some of the landmark provisions and what states will commit themselves once they ratify the Protocol. She concludes by appealing to states to stand up and perform their duty.

Full article: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=22727

5. Time to take count of Africa's daughters

Good is no good where better can be attained, states GICHINGA NDIRANGU. Ratifying the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa is an important step, but domesticating its provisions into national law is the next crucial step.

Full article: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=22723

6. Making governments accountable

Political expediency and global image are the reasons why governments ratify international human rights instruments, says DR SYLVIA TAMALE. But by ratifying governments are pledging to adhere to all the provisions of any given instrument. In this context, it is the duty of citizens to make governments accountable.

Full article:http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=22724

7. Zimbabwe's Women Acting Against AIDS

It has been both difficult and painful to comprehend the world's impassivity when millions of women and girls continue to die of AIDS that has come about as a consequence of gender discrimination, writes ISABELLA MATAMBANADZO. “The race, sex and class factors that have for the past two and a half decades allowed African women to die slowly, one at a time, from the casualty and shame of AIDS cannot go ignored.”

Full article: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=22725

8. “It is not a gift to offer women, it is their right”

Women that are free from violence, educated and who fully participate in decision making at all levels: these are some of the results expected by the implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. And, asks MORISSANDA KOUYATE, which country would not want that for its citizens?

Full article: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=22731

9. Meeting the gender parity target of 2005
As African leaders and heads of state plan to join hands in the forthcoming AU summit in Addis next month, three years after appending their signatures to the Dakar Framework for action (EFA Protocol, 2000), civil society’s perception on progress made on EFA by African countries has been mixed, argues ANDIWO OBONDOH

10. The reality…and the paperwork

War and violence, destitution, disease, poverty and discrimination - it is often African women who carry the burden of Africa's economic, social and political crisis. In July 2003 a piece of paper with a preamble and 29 articles was passed by the African Union that was hailed as major progress in the struggle for the rights of women on the continent. But what exactly is the reality facing African women? And how does the paperwork begin to address the realities? PAMBAZUKA NEWS looks at ten areas effecting women's rights and what the protocol says about them.

Full article: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=22722

** Statistics on gender in Africa, links to interesting articles, useful web sites and resources on women's rights.

This special issue has been produced jointly by Fahamu, Equality Now, FEMNET CREDO and Oxfam GB.

The ratification of the protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, is one of three strong motions that was tabled by both ruling and opposition parties in Parliament on Tuesday.

The United Nations (UN) should do more to protect indigenous women throughout the world from multiple layers of discrimination. This was the sentiment aired by indigenous women from different countries during the Third Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues which took place at the UN headquarters in New York, USA last 10-21 May 2004. The theme of this year's mission was "indigenous women," with indigenous defined by the UN as communities, peoples and nations which have a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, and thus indigenous people consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them.

The Coordinator of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Mr Joseph Modi, has said Nigerian women produce more than 50 per cent of the country's food needs but they still live in penury and deprivation, due to lack of modern knowledge and skill to preserve their farm produce. Modi said this at a four-day workshop on food processing organised by NDE.

A teenage bride has escaped from the home of a Mandera businessman whom she accused of torturing her. The 15-year-old girl, who had been forcefully married to the 60-year-old businessman, made her dramatic escape and appealed to the government and human rights organisations to rescue her from the forced marriage.

After 21 years of civil war, southern Sudan ranks worst in the world for many key indicators of the wellbeing of women and children, including rates of chronic malnutrition, immunisation, antenatal care and primary school completion, according to a new study. With net enrolment in schools at only 20 percent, southern Sudanese children have the least access to primary education in the world, according to the study, conducted by the New Sudan Centre for Statistics and Evaluation (NSCSE), in association with UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The overwhelming majority of women in Mali still undergo female circumcision in their youth, but attitudes are changing, and now a US$2 million public awareness campaign by Plan International is set to change them even faster. The children's charity held a meeting at this lakeside resort town in southern Mali last week to explain how the new money would be used to fight female circumcision.

Indeed, African women have suffered long enough - oppression, suppression, repression and discrimination. We need an urgent action to put a final stop to all that, but we need to have some mechanisms for facilitation. The protocol is a very welcome development and its ratification will be a good stepping stone towards the eradication of the violation of the rights of African women. (With reference to the Petition on the Protocol on the Rights of Women). Gloria Okemuo, Nigeria

Sign the petition at:

Agenda Feminist Media Project launched the Writing Programme in 2003 to develop the capacity of women, particularly women of colour, to write for publication. Agenda is currently looking for writers based in the Eastern Cape and Kwa Zulu-Natal (South Africa) to write for publication in 2005 but the programme will commence in 2004. The programme will run from August 2004 and will focus specifically on academic writing skills but will include two other strands of writing: journalistic and creative. This aims to develop women's capacity for academic writing, particularly writing for publication in journals. It intends to enable writing and thoughts on issues of gender.

You have substantial experience in a similar role and understand the key gender and diversity issues and the challenges related to addressing them. You have evidence of your professional competence in gender and diversity work. You can think strategically and apply this skill to develop and implement strategies for mainstreaming gender and diversity into relief and development programmes.

On 11 July 2003, the African Union adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, marking a significant step forward in promoting the rights of women within Africa. But almost a year after its adoption, only one member state of the AU, The Comoros, has signed and ratified the Protocol. Twenty-eight member states have signed but are yet to ratify it as at May 12, 2004. This calls for 14 more countries to ratify in order for it to come into force. Oxfam GB, Equality Now, FEMNET, CREDO for Freedom of Expression and Associated Rights and FAHAMU have started a campaign targeting 14 countries that have already signed with the aim of lobbying them to ratify. A petition has been drafted that will be presented to the AU Summit in July 2004. You can sign up at http://www.pambazuka.org/petition/petition.php?id=1.

Almost a year after its adoption of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa on July 11 2003, Maputo Mozambique, The Republic of Ethiopia on June 2, 2004 signed the protocol. Twenty-seven other member states have signed it but are yet to ratify it as at June 7, 2004 . 14 more countries must ratify it in order for the Protocol to come into force.

Speaking at a National Women's Conference on Peace and Socio-Economic Recovery in Liberia, Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) emphasized the centrality of women's participation and leadership in all phases of the country's recovery, including processes of disarmament, demobilization, and rehabilitation. She described the conference as a celebration of the courage of Liberia's women, of their resilience and capacity for leadership amidst the trauma and devastation of conflict over the past decade.

Women should not be neglected or put aside; African women are going through a lot and it is important that our AU Heads of State ratify the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Women should not be overlooked as without us humanity is not complete. We are not here to compete with our men but we are here to make this world worth living in. The rights of African women should be the pride of not only the African men but a pride to African governments. African women are rare gems; our rights is all we ask.
Fateye Aderonke, Nigeria

Sign the petition at:

We urge member states of the African Union to sign, ratify and inco-operate the protocol into their national laws and ensure women's rights are protected at the national level.

Sign the petition at:

Lithur Nana Oye, Ghana