Are we really on the same page? Understanding the distortion of human rights law in Africa by anti-rights actors
Posted: 16 March, 2026 Filed under: Lakshita Kanhiya, Michael Gyan Nyarko | Tags: African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African values, anti-rights actors, anti-rights backlash, challenges, constitutionalism, culture, family, human rights law, morality, national sovereignty, regional norm-setting, religion, religious fundamentalism, shrinking civic space, strategic litigation, the human rights mechanisms, transnational funding Leave a comment |
Author: Lakshita Kanhiya Legal Officer, Initiative for Strategic Litigation (ISLA) in Africa |
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Author: Michael Gyan Nyarko Deputy Executive Director, Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) |
Too much ‘progress’ too soon?
For the past two and half decades, Africa’s human rights architecture has steadily expanded normatively, institutionally, and jurisprudentially. From the humble beginnings of African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and ‘baby’ steps of its monitoring body the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the 1990s, the turn of the new millennium saw an increase in the number of norms as well as institutions mandated by the African Union to promote and protect human rights, including the establishment and operationalisation of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. Even with all the institutional, political and other challenges that regional these institutions have faced, they have contributed to relatively progressive human rights landscape, influencing progressive decisions of national courts and regional bodies, and contributed to embedding the language of dignity, equality, and freedom in legal and political discourse across the continent. Constitutionalism, regional norm-setting, and strategic litigation have strengthened the visibility and legitimacy of human rights principles in both legal and public arenas.
AUCEVAWG: A missed opportunity in the fight against violence towards women and girls in Africa
Posted: 22 September, 2025 Filed under: Lakshita Kanhiya | Tags: African Union (AU) Assembly, AUCEVAWG, combat violence, Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (CEVAWG), displaced women, ensuring gender-responsive budgeting, free from violence, harmful labour, human rights, older women, questionable consultations, religious fundamentalism, right of women and girls, sexual and gender minorities, shrinking civic space, state obligations, travaux préparatoires, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), vulnerable groups, women with disabilities 11 Comments
Author: Lakshita Kanhiya
Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA)
Introduction
In February 2025, the African Union (AU) Assembly adopted the Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (CEVAWG), a landmark instrument that seeks to strengthen the continent’s response to one of its most pervasive human rights challenges. The Convention affirms the right of women and girls to live free from violence (Article 2) and extends protection across both public and private spheres, including cyberspace and conflict settings (Article 3). It prescribes comprehensive state obligations from enacting laws to combat violence, ensuring gender-responsive budgeting, and establishing coordinated support services for survivors (Articles 4–5), to protecting particularly vulnerable groups such as displaced women, women with disabilities, and older women (Article 7). The text also contains progressive provisions on the world of work (Article 8), safeguards for girls against harmful labour (Article 9), preventive measures that outlaw customs or traditions invoked to justify violence (Article 10) and guarantees of access to justice and protection for human rights defenders (Articles 11–12).
AfricLaw 