African States urged to strengthen women’s rights protections amid rising anti-gender pushback

At the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) 85th Ordinary Session, leading women’s rights organisation Equality Now (www.EqualityNow.org) issued a stark warning: women and girls across Africa continue to suffer serious human rights violations due to state inaction.

Equality Now urges all African governments to urgently enact and implement comprehensive measures to fulfil their legal obligations to uphold women’s and girls’ rights, outlined in key regional human rights instruments, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, widely known as the Maputo Protocol. Human rights lawyer Deborah Nyokabi delivered Equality Now’s statement to the ACHPR (https://apo-opa.co/4pcnzEA), highlighting where states are falling short of their commitments.

Nyokabi pointed to weak legal safeguards against sexual violence, limited access to justice and support services, widespread impunity for perpetrators, and persistent failures to tackle sexual exploitation and trafficking. She also stressed how the lack of reproductive healthcare is a preventable crisis putting millions of women, girls, and babies at risk. Another concern is the rise of anti-gender rights movements seeking to dismantle legal protections and block progress.

Barriers to justice for sexual and gender-based violence survivors

Across Africa, survivors of sexual and gender-based violence continue to face formidable barriers to justice and support services, despite strong regional legal frameworks and progressive sexual violence laws in some jurisdictions.

Equality Now’s report, Barriers to Justice: Rape in Africa, Law, Practice and Access to Justice (https://apo-opa.co/44zPoPx), revealed that while rape is one of Africa’s most pervasive crimes, the majority of cases don’t make it to court, and even fewer result in a conviction. Gaps in laws and weak enforcement, under-resourced judicial systems, limited political will, and pervasive victim-blaming and discrimination foster a culture of impunity that emboldens perpetrators.

African governments must address sexual violence in conflict

A high-profile case illustrating the weaponisation of sexual violence by state actors was shared by Ugandan lawyer, journalist, and activist Agather Atuhaire (https://apo-opa.co/3L3he01), who has spoken out about being raped and tortured in Tanzanian state custody after being arrested on her way to support political opposition leader Tundu Lissu, a critic of Tanzania’s government.

Sudan’s devastating war provides a harrowing example of how sexual violence increases during conflict. In 2025, the International Criminal Court spoke of rape being used as a weapon of war (https://apo-opa.co/4p4dJo5), and a UN Fact-Finding Mission reported large-scale ethnically targeted sexual violence (https://apo-opa.co/3L9Wd3L).

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Ministry of Health recorded 73,400 sexual violence cases (https://apo-opa.co/4s92RYW) between January and July 2025, a 16% increase from the previous period. Alarmingly, the actual number is likely far higher, as countless incidents go unreported due to stigma, fear, insecurity, and significant legal and logistical obstacles faced by survivors in conflict-affected areas.

In August 2025, a historic judgment by the ACHPR held the DRC accountable for widespread sexual violence (https://apo-opa.co/4pHRtRQ) in a case filed to obtain justice for survivors of atrocities committed by Congolese military personnel on January 1, 2011, in South Kivu, where over 50 women were raped and tortured, with some murdered. The ACHRP ruled the DRC had violated multiple provisions of the African Charter and Maputo Protocol, including the rights to life, health, dignity, and protection from torture. Crucially, it recognised the gendered nature of the crimes, setting a precedent.

Nyokabi highlighted concerns over the DRC’s inaction following the ACHRP’s ruling, urging the government to issue a formal public apology to survivors, implement comprehensive reparative measures, and prosecute perpetrators. Equality Now also calls for a robust follow-up to ensure compliance with the ACHPR’s decision, including a hearing on the implementation status and reporting by the DRC within the mandated 180-day period.

In Kenya, 2025 marked a historic first: the Kenyan government paid compensation for conflict-related sexual violence (https://apo-opa.co/4q2QMmF) to four survivors of the 2007–2008 post-election unrest. While this represents a significant step toward accountability, it remains deeply inadequate as hundreds of survivors of post-election sexual violence have received no redress.

Sexual exploitation and human trafficking

Sexual exploitation and trafficking are pervasive across Africa, fuelled by poverty, conflict, climate change, displacement, and cross-border trafficking. Although legal instruments exist, enforcement is inconsistent, and better-coordinated regional action is urgently needed.

Governments must move from commitment to implementation by harmonising and strengthening anti-trafficking laws, ensuring reparations for survivors, and investing in specialised justice mechanisms and survivor-centred services.

Anti-gender rights movements in Africa

The rise of anti-gender rights movement (https://apo-opa.co/4rYXfQR) is jeopardising legal protections for women and girls and threatening to undo decades of legal progress, endangering the well-being of millions. These efforts are not occurring in isolation. Well-funded international networks are increasingly influencing, coordinating with, and empowering African actors who oppose gender equality.

At a regional convening in Kenya in June 2025, ultra-conservative campaigners from the US and Europe joined African counterparts to advance an agenda framed as “promoting and protecting the sanctity of life, family values, and religious freedom.” In practice, their regressive plan contests reproductive healthcare, comprehensive sexuality education, and LGBTQ+ rights.

Emerging from the convening is the ‘Draft African Charter on Family, Sovereignty and Values.’ Composed without participation from women’s rights organisations, this charter promotes a narrow model of the “traditional family” and womenhood rooted in rigid, hierarchical gender roles that discriminate against women, girls, and LGBTQ+ individuals.  It disregards diversity in family structures and aims to eliminate essential protections for family life and marriage equality.

Anti-gender rights ideology ignores the reality documented in Equality Now’s report, Gender Inequality in Family Laws in Africa (https://apo-opa.co/4p2i8aW), which identifies how family life for many women and girls is blighted by control, violence, discrimination, and marginalisation.

Anti-gender rights actors jeopardise efforts to end FGM

A troubling example of anti-gender rights activism is illustrated by a constitutional challenge submitted to The Gambia’s Supreme Court, requesting the country’s law banning FGM be overturned on the grounds that it violates Gambians’ constitutional rights to cultural, traditional, and religious freedoms. This follows a failed attempt in 2024, when MPs rejected a bill to repeal anti-FGM legislation.

Those striving to end FGM reject assertions that the practice is cultural or religious, emphasising that no tradition or religion can justify violating the rights, health, and safety of women and girls.

A 2025 ECOWAS Court ruling found Sierra Leone liable for human rights violations due to its failure to criminalise FGM (https://apo-opa.co/4pLlcJS), which the Court said “meets the threshold of torture.” Despite this judgment, the government still hasn’t banned the practice. In neighbouring Liberia, FGM remains legal and pervasive. However, a bill to permanently ban all harmful practices affecting girls and women, including FGM, is being considered by lawmakers.

Equality Now calls on every African government to fully enforce existing anti-FGM laws and swiftly introduce legislation where legal protections are lacking.

Africa’s reproductive justice crisis

Africa remains the most dangerous place globally to give birth, accounting for 70% of maternal deaths worldwide (https://apo-opa.co/48Mqm28). Most are preventable, with child marriage, criminalisation of healthcare services, and unsafe abortion all contributing factors.

Despite regional commitments, national laws often contain contradictions that hinder access to reproductive healthcare. In countries such as Kenya and Nigeria, outdated and overlapping laws create fear among healthcare providers and discourage them from offering safe abortion services. In Tanzania and Uganda, restrictive laws and policy reservations on the Maputo Protocol block access to critical reproductive healthcare.

Equality Now requests that the ACHPR continue advocating for African Union Member States to harmonise national laws with the Maputo Protocol’s Article 14, which specifies that women’s right to sexual and reproductive health should be ensured.

Nyokabi concludes, “Africa’s civil society urges ACHPR Member States to uphold their binding commitments. Legal equality is not optional. It is a prerequisite for lasting peace, development, and justice.”

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Equality Now.

Notes to editors:
For media enquiries,contact
Michelle Tuva
Regional Communications Officer, Africa
mtuva@equalitynow.org

Tara Carey
Global Head of Media
Equality Now
Tcarey@equalitynow.org
T. +44 (0)7971556340 (available on WhatsApp and Signal)

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About Equality Now:
Equality Now (www.EqualityNow.org) is a worldwide human rights organisation dedicated to securing the legal and systemic change needed to end discrimination against all women and girls. Since its inception in 1992, it has played a role in reforming 120 discriminatory laws globally, positively impacting the lives of hundreds of millions of women and girls, their communities, and nations, both now and for generations to come.