AU on Fight against Gender-Based Violence

(PANA)--As the world celebrates international Women’s Day on Sunday, the African Union (AU) is once again being seen as pushing itself to the forefront of the fight against discrimination against women, a significant problem facing many African countries.

The AU has passed a couple of instruments aimed at promoting and protecting women’s rights in Africa, especially elimination of discrimination against women and gender-based violence. The AU, determined to eliminate violence against women and girls, adopted during the second ordinary session of the Assembly in Maputo the Protocol of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, which has now been ratified by 26 states.

The AU leaders also adopted the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (SDGEA) in 2004 in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia. The AU Commission, AU organs, Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and member states, are currently taking internal measures and implementing the Protocol and the Solemn Declaration with men and women at all levels of the decision-making on the ground. The AU is also aware of the importance of uniting men and women in order to eliminate violence against women.

In the meantime, African women and men are lobbying and advocating for women’s advancement and empowerment. Men, especially in the police service, armed forces and judiciary, are undergoing training on issue of gender-based violence such as rape, trafficking and female genital mutilation. The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) of the UN General Assembly adopted in 1979 ratified by 185 countries, the AU Protocol on Women and SDGEA are frameworks to assist men in lobbying other men in order to eliminate violence against girls and women.

‘From this day onwards there should no longer be an excuse for excluding men from the fight against violence against women. Men now have an institutional framework to be more involved in recognition of human rights and fundamental freedoms of women,’ says the AU.

Addis Ababa 7/5/2009

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