Review of 'Africa: Breathing Life into the African Union Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa'
The adoption in 2003 of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa was a major landmark in the life of the newly refurbished African Union. African feminist activists wasted no time in forming a pan-African network of women’s rights groups – Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) – that embarked on campaigning to get the fifteen ratifications needed to make the Protocol operational. Thanks to these efforts the Protocol came into force in November 2005. Experience had taught SOAWR members that for a regional human rights document like this Protocol to have real meaning for the women of Africa, it was crucial not only to have universal ratification but also to facilitate the implementation and popularisation of the Protocol. Therein lay the primary objective behind this edited collection. The book attempts to move the Protocol from the position of formal gender justice to substantive gender justice, by breathing life into its text, hence the metaphorical title, Breathing Life into the African Union Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa. The objective is realised in a blend of astounding clarity, conciseness, and sharp analyses. The size of the book certainly belies its enormous value.
Breathing Life into the African Union Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa: Musa, Roselynn, Faiza Mohammed and Firoze Manji (eds.)
Review by Sylvia Tamale
The adoption in 2003 of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa was a major landmark in the life of the newly refurbished African Union. African feminist activists wasted no time in forming a pan-African network of women’s rights groups – Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) – that embarked on campaigning to get the fifteen ratifications needed to make the Protocol operational. Thanks to these efforts the Protocol came into force in November 2005.
Experience had taught SOAWR members that for a regional human rights document like this Protocol to have real meaning for the women of Africa, it was crucial not only to have universal ratification but also to facilitate the implementation and popularisation of the Protocol. Therein lay the primary objective behind this edited collection. The book attempts to move the Protocol from the position of formal gender justice to substantive gender justice, by breathing life into its text, hence the metaphorical title, Breathing Life into the African Union Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa. The objective is realised in a blend of astounding clarity, conciseness, and sharp analyses. The size of the book certainly belies its enormous value.
Based on the proceedings of a joint SOWAR/AU Commission conference held in Addis Ababa in September 2005, the book is neatly woven into thirteen chapters that are grouped into four complementary parts. It must be one of the shortest non-literary anthologies ever. The chapters, authored by activists from diverse disciplines, are refreshingly succinct, accessible, and pragmatic, drawing in even the most ‘gender-weary’ reader. The text boxes interspersed within the essays help to break the monotony of the text and add to the book’s appeal.
Part one provides the context for the ratification of the Protocol. Caroline Kemp paints the framework within which this latest Africa-specific women’s rights tool was designed. Rita Anyumba then places the Protocol within the wider context of other related international, regional, sub-regional, and national instruments.
In Part two, ‘The Protocol Comes into Force’, Faiza Mohamed takes readers through the historical journey of the SOAWR campaign. Such an account is vital for posterity, so that tomorrow’s activists do not re-invent the wheel, but build upon experience. Roselynn Musa’s chapter provides a sampling of several provisions of the Protocol, clearly showing the anomalies that they were designed to address.
With seven chapters, part three, ‘Breathing Life into the Protocol: Challenges for Implementation,’ forms the core of the book. Sarah Mukasa’s piece emphasises the importance of launching a campaign for ‘domestication’ in those jurisdictions (i.e. countries where Common Law predominates) where this is essential before the Protocol can be implemented. She carefully discusses the various challenges that lie ahead for the implementation of the Protocol, suggesting different ways of addressing them. Mary Wandia’s chapter – which analyses the institutions mandated to implement and monitor the Protocol – is equally important. The financial challenges that the Protocol’s implementation is likely to face are tackled by Mary Rusimbi by drawing on the ‘Gender Budgeting’ experiences of her own organisation, the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme.
Loga Virahsawmy and Rotimi Sankore elaborate the initiatives of the Southern African Development Community sub-region to implement and domesticate the Protocol. The initiative by the Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance to develop model legislation based on the Protocol to be used and adapted as an advocacy tool is particularly impressive. In the next chapter, Ibrahima Kane also provides practical tips on how to harmonise the Protocol with different national legal systems (Common Law versus Civil Law) on the continent. He draws attention to the complexities involved in the application of international instruments in Africa and addresses the legal intricacies of harmonisation that will precede concrete implementation of the Protocol.
Simbogile Ndashe offers another creative tool for the domestication of the Protocol, ‘strategic litigation’. She discusses the potential and the challenges involved in using this tool to act as a law reform catalyst or in advancing judicial activism. Anne Amadi takes judicial activism a step further by suggesting that domesticating the Protocol should be viewed as a conflict (between the patriarchal state and subordinated women) that requires the employment of alternative dispute resolution negotiation techniques. Persuasive as this argument may be, the danger with such an approach lies in its underlying philosophy that suggests that women’s rights are negotiable.
The fourth and final part of the book contains two articles. Both pieces analyse and link two crises that affect the lives of African women in attempts to implement the Protocol. Amie Joof-Cole focuses on applying the Protocol to women in conflict situations. Elize Delport then highlights the challenges posed by the scourge of HIV and AIDS to the successful implementation of the Protocol.
Appended to the book are lists of SOWAR members, conference participants, and the countries that had ratified the Protocol by January 2006. It would have been useful to include an appendix consisting of the Protocol itself. Moreover, the astute and solid scholarship that characterises the general shape of this collection is punctuated here and there with a few drawbacks. For example, disregarding the agency of African women (e.g., see Musa’s chapter), uncritically perpetuating the ‘rights versus culture’ polarisation (evident in Anyumba’s piece) and assuming readers’ prior knowledge of some issues (e.g., Wandia’s reference to the African Court and the Court of Justice on p. 35). However, this does not detract from the book’s value. It is a ‘must read’ for all women’s rights activists, human rights practitioners, development policy makers, and students from a wide range of disciplines, who will all also find it most instructive. To ensure wider readership on the continent, this exciting book should be translated into the other major languages spoken around Africa such as French, Portuguese, and Arabic, as well as the major indigenous sub-regional languages.
This review first appeared in Gender & Development journal, vol. 15 issue 1
http://www.informaworld.com/gad]
* Sylvia Tamale, PhD, Associate Professor and Dean of Law, Makerere University, Uganda, email: [email][email protected]
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