What is the campaign ” Africa for women’s rights “?
« From advocacy…to law…to reality » : This campaign for the fulfilment of women’s human rights, aims to generate mass mobilisation and draw maximum attention, in order to increase pressure on African States to ratify the international and regional women’s human rights protection instruments, without reservation, and to respect them, in domestic laws and in practice.
Who launched this campaign?
The campaign was launched at the initiative of 6 non-governmental, international and regional human rights and women’s rights organisations: The African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS), Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS), The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Women’s Aid Collective (WACOL), Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF) and Women and Law in South Africa (WLSA). These organisations compose the Campaign Steering Committee in charge of the coordination of the campaign.
What is a focal point?
The focal points of the campaign are human rights and women’s rights organisations, based across the African continent, in charge of relaying the campaign at the national level. Almost every country gathers one or several focal points whose role is to put pressure on their governements, to raise public awareness, to gather information on violations of women’s human rights and to formulate recommandations.
How can individuals support this campaign?
The campaign aims to mobilise women and men, from all countries, of all ages and backgrounds. By signing the Campaign Declaration on-line, by joining the facebook group (“Africa for women’s rights – ratify and respect!”), and by participating in actions detailed on the blog (protests, marches, sending letters to African governments, debates, press conferences), you can contribute to ensuring that the movement for the fulfilment of women’s human rights in Africa gains maximum visibility and provokes concrete reforms.
What will be the concrete consequences of this campaign for women in Africa?
The ultimate purpose of this campaign is to put an end to violence and discrimination against women in Africa. If the mobilisation around this campaign is significant enough to exert real pressure on governments, leading them to ratify international and regional instruments protecting women’s human rights, to abolish discriminatory laws and customs, to adopt legislation protecting women from violence and discrimination and to take all the necessary steps to ensure their effective implementation, the life of women in Africa will change. This campaign is not going to prevent rapes from being committed, female circumcision being practised or immediately change entrenched stereotypes about the role of the women in societies. However, if laws are adopted and implemented to sanction violence and to guarantee women equal status to men, these practices will be punished, perpetrators prosecuted and women will no longer be treated as inferior to their brothers or husbands, or marginalised in the public domain. It is by achieving equality before the law, that practices will change and mindsets will evolve towards respect for women’s human rights.
