NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 1-African women’s rights advocates have warned that growing appeals to “family values”, culture, religion and national sovereignty are being used to undermine hard-won protections for women and girls, calling for stronger public engagement and accountability to prevent a rollback of gender-equality gains.The warning emerged ahead of the 81st United Nations General Assembly as rights experts and civil society groups examined growing anti-rights mobilisation and its potential impact on gender equality, sexual and reproductive health and human rights accountability.The latest SHE & Rights session, jointly hosted by the Global Center for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI) and CNS with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW) and Asia Pacific Media Alliance for Health, Gender and Development Justice (APCAT Media), placed particular focus on the use of family, cultural and religious narratives in political and legal debates.Dr Robert Eno, Registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, said there was currently no indication that a proposed African Charter on “family sovereignty and values” was scheduled for consideration by the African Union Assembly.Eno stressed that the draft charter was not proposed by the African Union and would have to pass through a lengthy institutional process before reaching the Assembly.He also expressed doubt that the proposed instrument would reach the AU Assembly by February 2027.But Eno cautioned against complacency, saying the concern went beyond the fate of a single proposed legal instrument.He said the broader contest was about how societies define and understand family, culture, religion, equality and human dignity.“Discriminatory laws continue to affect women and girls in different parts of the world,” he noted, citing unequal inheritance rights, restrictions on divorce and the failure in some jurisdictions to recognise marital rape.Rehema Namukose, Senior Regional Programme Officer for sub-Saharan Africa at Musawah, said anti-rights actors were increasingly exploiting the language of family protection to stall reforms affecting women.She said legislation seeking to advance women’s rights in marriage, divorce and custody was being delayed in some countries while restrictive “family protection” bills gained political traction, sometimes with external far-right funding.Namukose cited developments in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, saying political and legislative efforts could restrict bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive rights while reforms addressing marriage, divorce, custody and women’s equal rights face delays.She also linked the framing to practices including child marriage and female genital mutilation, as well as women’s economic disadvantage through unpaid care work and unequal property and inheritance rights.In some Muslim family-law systems, she said, concepts such as “male guardianship” and “male authority” can be codified in ways that make women’s rights conditional on obedience.Namukose argued that the language of “family values”, “cultural integrity”, “sovereignty” and “national cohesion” can be deployed to preserve patriarchal power rather than protect families.She called for greater cooperation between legal networks, faith communities, survivors, policymakers and civil society organisations.Samah Hadid, Global Executive Director of Musawah, similarly warned that the anti-rights movement was becoming more coordinated and better resourced, with religion, culture and tradition increasingly used to justify discrimination.She said religious language was frequently used to police women and reinforce patriarchal control in both private and public life.Musawah is seeking to challenge such arguments from within Muslim legal and religious traditions by developing egalitarian Islamic arguments supporting women’s rights and training activists, lawyers and judges to use them.Hadid called for alliances involving secular, religious, cultural and human-rights actors, arguing that family, religion and tradition can coexist with equality and justice for women and girls.The discussions also turned to the African Union Convention on Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls (AU CEVAWG), adopted in February 2025.Fatou Bantou Salah of the Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA) said nine AU member states had signed the convention, while The Gambia and Ghana had ratified it.The treaty requires 15 ratifications to enter into force, leaving 13 additional ratifications needed.Salah said the period before the treaty becomes binding should be used for a thorough legal review.ISLA and other civil society actors have raised concerns about limited civil-society consultation during drafting, the absence of published preparatory materials, conceptual and substantive gaps and weaknesses concerning state due-diligence obligations.
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