GEMSA welcomes Protocol on Rights of Women in Africa coming into force


Date: January 1, 1970
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1 November: The Gender and Media Southern Africa Network, GEMSA has welcomed the ratification and domestication of the African Protocol on the Rights of Women by the fifteenth African country Togo, which now means that the Protocol will come into force.

Togo joined Cape Verde, the Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Benin as signatories on 26 October.

The Protocol provides a comprehensive framework for the reform of national legislation that guarantees the rights of women. Some of the key provisions in the Protocol include the right to termination of pregnancy, the prohibition of female genital mutilation, the prevention of the use of women in advertising and pornography and range of economic and social welfare rights for women.

Colleen Lowe Morna, Chair of GEMSA, stated: "This is a milestone for women’s rights in Africa. It is important to see the Protocol as a beginning that will require civil society and governments to work together to ensure that the provisions are implemented on the ground in ways that make a difference to women’s daily lives." She added that the ratification of the African Protocol provides impetus for the elevation of the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development to a sub-regional Protocol that would encompass and enhance all existing regional and international commitments.

GEMSA notes with concern that only four Southern African countries have ratified the Protocol: Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia and South Africa. GEMSA will continue to work with the Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance to raise public awareness on the need to ratify the African protocol and to elevate the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development to a Protocol by the SADC Heads of State Summit in 2006.

For further information contact Kubi Rama on +27 823788239 or Colleen Lowe Morna on +27 826516995.

(GEMSA is a regional network that strives to “make every voice count, and count that it does”. The Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance comprises: Gender Links, the Gender and Media Southern Africa (GEMSA) Network, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), SAFAIDS, Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), Women in Law in Southern Africa (WLSA), CREDO, the Women in Politics Support Unit (WiPSU), Women in Politics Caucus, Botswana and the Women Land and Water Rights, Southern Africa.)


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