Progressive Law for African Women comes into Force

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.