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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

1. 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.

Unfinished Business - African Leaders Must Act Now to ratify The Protocol on Rights of Women
Faiza Jama Mohamed

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 [email protected]