Progressive Law for African Women comes into Force
On November 25, 2005, the annual 16 Days of Activism against Violence Against Women began. For women in Africa, the day also marked the entry into force of the Protocol on the Rights of the African Woman, an instrument that has been celebrated as being progressive and having the potential to improve the lot of women in Africa and serve as a model for other parts of the world. By Kathambi Kinoti. Resource Net Friday File Issue 253, December 2005
The Protocol is popularly known as the Maputo
Protocol, having been signed in July 2003 in Maputo, Mozambique. It is a
supplement to the African Charter on Human and People?s Rights, which has
been in force since 1981. The Protocol required ratification by at least 15
of the 53 member states of the African Union before it could become law and
the 15th state finally signed it on October 25, 2005.
Although there have been several international instruments that seek to
enhance and protect women?s rights, the Protocol is regarded as being
particularly effective in addressing the specific situation of African
women. It comprehensively addresses issues such as inheritance, widowhood,
elderly women, women in situations of conflict, harmful traditional
practices such as forced early marriages, female genital mutilation and
emerging issues such as HIV and AIDS. It also addresses the rights of
refugee and internally displaced (IDP) women in Africa, which has the
highest refugee and IDP population in the world. It calls upon states to
implement affirmative action to ensure that women participate equally in
decision-making.
Of course, the major challenge is in the domestication of the Protocol
within the various member states of the African Union. The states have
already set a poor precedent in their slowness to sign and ratify the
treaty. One year after it was signed, only one country, the Comoros, had
ratified it. Two years down the line, only 15 states have ratified it out
of a possible 53. This means that only these 15 states have shown their
willingness to go a step further and incorporate the instrument?s
provisions domestically. This is in spite of the ?Solemn Declaration on
Gender Equality? that African heads of state made in their annual Summit in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2004. The laws of most African states do not
provide for automatic incorporation of international conventions locally;
they have to pass legislation to translate treaties into domestic law.
African women will therefore have to keep up their efforts to ensure that
the Protocol is a tool of practical use to them, by working for its
translation into legislation, and for the necessary budgetary allocations
to be made to translate the legislation into action. Although African
states have not shown particularly impressive commitment to upholding the
Protocol, they have demonstrated their recognition for the need for greater
solidarity through the African Union, and have even instituted certain peer
review mechanisms. This is an opportunity for African women to take
advantage of the renewed sense of African unity and peer accountability to
make the Protocol meaningful in the everyday life of every woman in the
continent.
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