Article 1: Definition of ‘Cyberspace’ and as represented in Arts 3(a), 5(a), 8(c)

•        The term ‘cyberspace’ indicates a zone or location of violence but does not address technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) as a manifestation of violence.

•        ‘Cyberspace’ is limited and simplistic in conceptualisation and fails to address the comprehensive nature of TFGBV.

•        Beyond mentioning cyberspace, the Convention does not recognise it as a distinct and pervasive sphere of harm. It fails to recognise online harm as part of a continuum of GBV that occurs offline and online, in public or private.

•        Article 3(a) attempts to address this but does not position it as central to VAWG, with its own mechanisms, risks, and legal implications.

•        The repetitive addition of ‘cyberspace’ does not address how violence may differ across formal and informal sectors or digital workspaces (e.g., gig platforms, remote work).

•        Replace ‘cyberspace’ with ‘technology-facilitated gender-based violence against women and girls (TFGBVAWG).’

•        Adopt emerging standards from UN Women defining TFGBVAWG as: ‘Any act that is committed, assisted, aggravated, or amplified by the use of ICTs or other digital tools, that results in or is likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological, social, political, or economic harm, or other infringements of rights and freedoms.’

Article 1: Definition of ‘Harmful Practices’

•        Harmful practices are underemphasised with no dedicated substantive provision in the Convention despite being defined.

•        The Convention defines harmful practices but does not establish obligations to eliminate them, prevention duties, state accountability, or specific measures.

•        Vague and weak definitions could lead to minimalist compliance, focusing only on service-level outcomes rather than addressing root causes through structural change.

•        Conflation of ‘women and girls’ obscures that girls face distinct harmful practices, especially child marriage, FGM, breast ironing, forced initiation, and abduction. AU instruments (Maputo Protocol Article 5; ACERWC General Comment No. 5) treat girls’ harmful practices separately.

•        Intersectional blind spots: overlooks age, class, ethnicity, geography, and vulnerabilities to harmful practices arising from these factors.

•        Most harmful practices directly affect sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), yet no linkage between harmful practices and SRHR is made.

•        Risk of cultural relativism: without explicit prohibition, states may justify harmful practices as African culture, tradition, or social norm.

•        Does not capture the complexities of harmful practices in socio-economic, political, and cultural contexts.

•        Fails to name key manifestations such as child marriage and FGM within an inclusive list.

•        Define harmful practices as violence with a definition based on human rights framing.

•        Align the definition with the Maputo Protocol (Article 5).

•        Explicitly name widespread manifestations most prevalent in African contexts, such as child marriage and FGM, in an inclusive list.

•        Include a substantive article to strengthen normative clarity on harmful practices (corresponding with the definition).

•        Create clear state obligations to prevent, prohibit, and eradicate harmful practices, including investing in research, data collection, and context-specific measures reflecting diverse forms and drivers across different communities and settings.

Article 1: Definition of ‘Femicide’ and as represented in the Preamble and Art 10(b)(i)

•        Beyond mentioning ‘femicide,’ the Convention provides no substantive legal normative standards on femicide. There is no concrete state obligations regarding what governments must do about femicide.

•        Femicide appears haphazardly as an add-on, always framed as ‘including femicide’ (see Articles 1, 10, and Preamble).

•        The definition is narrow and fails to reflect specific manifestations unique to killings of women in the African context, such as honour killings, conflict-related killings, deaths from harmful practices, killings of older women from witchcraft accusations, intimate partner violence (IPV) killings, or SOGIE-based killings.

•        Omits broader understanding of femicide as part of the continuum of gender-based discrimination and violence rather than isolated incidents.

•        Fails to recognise the systemic nature of femicide as rooted in patriarchy, misogyny, and unequal power relations between men and women.

•        Femicide as addressed in Article 10 on prevention is vague, making state responsibility difficult to enforce through domestic or regional mechanisms.

•        Replace or complement ‘femicide’ with ‘gender-related killings’ to encompass the broader continuum of gender-based discrimination and violence resulting in femicide.

•        Adopt a broader and inclusive definition recognising both active and passive killings of women, as clarified by existing human rights standards.

•        The definition should include both direct killings (intimate-partner violence; sorcery/witchcraft-related killings; honour-related killings; armed conflict-related killings; dowry-related killings; gender identity and sexual orientation-related killings; ethnic and indigenous identity-related killings) and indirect killings (deaths due to poorly conducted or clandestine abortions; maternal mortality; deaths from harmful practices; deaths linked to human trafficking, drug dealing, organised crime, and gang-related activities; deaths from simple neglect, starvation or ill-treatment; deliberate acts or omissions by the State).

•        Ensure the Convention reflects the lived experiences of African women and girls by explicitly including forms of femicide prevalent within Africa’s context.

•        Provide normative standards and state obligations on how to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and punish femicide, and provide remedy to victims’ families and communities.

•        Address femicide as a systematic form of GBV rather than isolated incidents, recognising fatal outcomes as the extreme end of everyday gender-based violence.

•        Develop clear accountability and reporting mechanisms for states to monitor and report progress on ending femicide.

Article 1: Definition of ‘Family’

•        Although the Convention defines family, it provides no substantive provisions on VAWG in the family context. There are no legal standards to address violence in the family, such as domestic violence.

•        The definition of ‘family’ is left to state parties. The concept is only defined to limit it and remove protections for violations in the family from the scope of international law.

•        This definition creates an entry point for attacks by anti-rights actors who weaponise the principle of state sovereignty to limit human rights protection in the family context.

•        There is no clarity on what constitutes a ‘natural and fundamental group,’ creating space for exclusionary interpretations.

•        Fails to recognise diverse family structures common in Africa, such as households headed by women, older persons, or people with disabilities.

•        Family is projected as a safe, protective unit, ignoring its frequent role as a site where gender-based violence is reproduced and sustained. This idealised framing weakens the Convention’s effectiveness in addressing structural causes of violence within domestic spaces.

•        Omits acknowledgment of intra-family violence, thereby missing one of the most prevalent and hidden forms of gender-based abuse.

•        Lacks inclusivity and context sensitivity, risking exclusion of non-traditional families and vulnerable groups from legal protection.

Article 1(m): Definition of ‘Women’s Human Rights Defenders’

•        Women’s Human Rights Defenders are defined on the basis of nationality, meaning non-nationals are excluded. Yet, in the context of transnational advocacy, migration, or displacement due to conflict or climate change, many non-nationals engage as human rights defenders.

•        This narrow conceptualisation further deviates from the principles of the OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, as expressly acknowledged in the first paragraph of the Preamble. By adopting such a restrictive approach, it unduly closes civic space by constraining the ability of individuals and collectives to advocate for human rights, including their capacity to speak out, organise, and participate in public life within a safe and enabling environment free from intimidation, retaliation, or reprisals.

•         

Articles 2 and 3: ‘The Right to be Free from Violence’ and ‘Scope’

•        By separating the substantive right (Article 2) from the scope (Article 3), the Convention fragments what should be a unified, indivisible recognition of gender-based violence as a human rights violation. This separation undermines progress in dismantling the public/private divide in international law.

•        The Convention includes ‘cyberspace’ as a separate sphere from ‘public’ or ‘private,’ yet cyberspace can be both public and private; it is not a separate sphere. This confusion and ambiguity weaken normative coherence and muddle the clarity needed for implementation. This ambiguity risks uneven judicial interpretation and application across jurisdictions.

•        Article 3 (scope) is not framed as a right or obligation, creating ambiguity and limiting interpretive clarity.

•        The Convention omits explicit recognition of equality or non-discrimination as the foundation of the right to be free from violence. Articles 2 and 3 lack conceptual grounding in human rights principles and fail to frame violence as a manifestation of discrimination.

•        The Convention does not identify rights implicated in VAWG contexts, such as rights to life, health, dignity, freedom and security of the person, freedom from torture or cruel, degrading treatment.

•        The Convention misses the opportunity to affirm the right to be free from GBV as a peremptory norm in international law.

•        Delete Article 3 and replace Article 2 with a comprehensive and consolidated right to live free from violence in all spheres—public or private, and at all times.

•        Reframe from VAWG to ‘gender-based violence against women and girls’ to explicitly link violence to structural causes rooted in gender inequalities and discrimination.

•        Include provisions with a non-exhaustive list of related rights that GBV violates, including rights to life, health, dignity, security, freedom from torture, cruel, harmful and degrading treatment, work, participation, and liberty—to establish legal entitlements reflecting GBVAW’s systemic reach. This embeds indivisibility and interdependence with related rights.

•        Anchor the right to live free from violence in equality and non-discrimination as core human rights norms.

•        Recognise both individual and structural manifestations of violence, demanding systemic responses.

Article 4: ‘Objectives’

•        Article 4 outlines the hopes and intentions of the Convention but does not frame these as normative standards, rights, or state obligations. Therefore, Article 4 lacks binding legal effect.

•        The objectives and purpose of a human rights treaty are to protect, promote, fulfil, and ensure respect for human rights and freedoms through creation of specific rights and specific legal obligations for states. Article 4 does not satisfy this basic purpose.

•        The existence of Article 4 is contrary to standard treaty-making practice, including African Union human rights treaties. Treaties do not have specific articles on objectives; they directly create the necessary normative legal standards.

•        Move or reframe broad objectives into the Preamble so that the treaty’s operative text focuses on concrete legal normative standards, including rights and state obligations.

•        If an objective article is maintained, rewrite it to emphasise the Convention’s legal normative purpose: to establish binding standards, create state obligations, and protect rights related to ending VAWG.

Article 5: ‘State Obligations on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls’

•        Article 5 does not include core, well-established legal obligations and instead lists partial measures, making it fundamentally inadequate as the main binding provision creating state obligations to end VAWG.

•        It fails to frame state obligations within existing standards of international law, which include positive and negative state obligations to respect, protect, promote, and fulfil human rights, including the right to be free from gender-based violence.

•        Fails to establish state obligations to act with due diligence in prevention, protection, investigation and prosecution, punishment, and provision of remedies for gender-based violence against women, whether perpetrated by state or non-state actors.

•        While the first two sub-articles of Article 5 can be read as obligations, they are not anchored by clear provisions on state obligations to prevent, protect, prosecute, punish, and provide adequate remedies for gender-based violence against women and girls. For example, merely stating that states should ‘enact laws’ is insufficient; it should form part of a broader, enforceable duty to prevent and respond to violence.

•        It focuses on narrow subjacent factors instead of providing a comprehensive framework of state obligations from which all important elements would flow.

•        For example, Article 5(b) obligates states to ensure that the criminal justice system provides forensic, case management, prosecutorial, and legal services to victims. These aspects would be included within broader obligations to prosecute and punish VAWG, which extend beyond the few services listed. Article 5(c) mandates states to conduct censuses and surveys to inform strategies, and Article 5(d) obliges states to use gender-responsive budgeting. Although important, these fall within broader state obligations to prevent VAWG by identifying causes and consequences and taking appropriate measures (see Maputo Protocol Article 4).

•        The obligations are vague and compound multiple factors, which inhibits clarity on what states are required to do, leaving room for confusion and inconsistent interpretation.

•        Redraft Article 5 to explicitly require States Parties to fulfil five fundamental obligations: prevent violence, protect victims, prosecute and punish perpetrators (ending impunity), and provide remedies (including survivor support and reparations).

•        The Convention should establish state obligations to end gender-based violence against women and girls in alignment with existing African Union standards and international standards, including the Maputo Protocol, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Guidelines on Ending Sexual Violence in Africa, and CEDAW General Recommendations 12, 19, and 35.

•        The Convention should include comprehensive framing of obligations for States to act with due diligence to prevent, protect, prosecute, punish, and provide adequate remedy for gender-based violence against women and girls, whether perpetrated by state or non-state actors, covering both acts of commission and omission.

•        The Convention should articulate state obligations in a way that ensures meaningful rights and enforceable standards.

Article 6: ‘Guiding Principles’

•        The guiding principles do not create legally binding state obligations. The article states that ‘states shall be guided by,’ which falls short of creating a legally binding obligation mandating states to act.

•        The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) sets out guiding principles of international law considered foundational to the operation of international law, including pacta sunt servanda, prohibition of the use of force, jus cogens, and sovereign equality of states. Introducing guiding principles in a treaty that are inconsistent with guiding principles applying to the law of treaties creates unnecessary confusion.

•        The substance of these ‘guiding principles’ resembles those found in policy documents and organisational strategies. When used in that context, they provide a framework for decision-making, behaviour, and action aligned with an organisation’s mission, vision, and values. They are high-level, strategic guidelines helping institutions or those implementing policies navigate choices consistent with their core beliefs. These guiding principles have no place in the substantive articles of a human rights treaty. At best, they are preambular and should appear in the preamble section.

•        Guiding Principles should not be included under the substantive articles of a treaty.

•        Guiding principles should be moved to the preamble.

Article 7: State Obligations on Multiple and Interconnected Factors that Exacerbate Violence Against Women and Girls

•        Article 7(2) creates state obligations to protect older women from all forms of violence and discrimination.

•        Acknowledges women and girls with disabilities, stateless persons, internally displaced women, asylum seekers, refugees, and older women as requiring specific attention.

•        Acknowledges contexts of armed conflict and displacement as relevant to vulnerability to violence.

•        The provision seeks to provide legal recognition to intersectionality but does not create obligations for states to protect women and girls whose experience of violence is compounded or exacerbated due to the existence of other forms of oppression and grounds of discrimination.

•        It does not recognise intersectionality as a legal or analytical framework. As a result, it lacks a clear link between discrimination and violence, weakening legal coherence that intersectional violence depends upon.

•        The title reflects global political pushback against the concept of ‘multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.’

•        Article 7(1) does not create binding obligations. It only requires states to ‘take cognisance’ of increased risk faced by women and girls who experience multiple forms of vulnerabilities.

•        It omits a list of grounds known to heighten the risk of vulnerability to intersectional violence. The grounds include race, nationality, social origin, class, age, sexual orientation and gender identity, migrant and refugee status.

•        Article 7(2)(c) focuses on older women and leaves out other groups like girl children and adolescents who also face heightened risk of violence because of their age.

•        Article 7(2)(c), (d), and (e) explicitly mention different groups including women with disabilities, migrants, and older women. The articles create obligations that are not necessarily responsive to the factors that heighten vulnerability. They repeat obligations found in other provisions of the Convention. State obligations applicable to all three groups are randomly assigned to different groups in various subsections.

•        In Article 7(2)(c), older women must be protected from all forms of violence and discrimination. All women and girls are entitled to this protection. It does not provide anything specific to older women’s vulnerability to violence.

•        In Article 7(2)(d), states are mandated to provide preventive, protective, legal, and judicial services to stateless, internally displaced, asylum seekers, and refugees. These obligations should not be limited to the listed groups of women and girls. They apply to other marginalised groups. Specific protections for this group include enhancing access to justice by not deporting undocumented migrants when they seek access to justice, regularising their stay to enable them to hold perpetrators to account, and providing interpretation and translation.

•        In Article 7(2)(e), states are mandated to enact and implement laws protecting women and girls with disabilities from exploitation and provide them with holistic support services. Similarly, these protections should apply to all marginalised groups. Specific protections for women with disabilities include effective monitoring of facilities and programs serving women and girls with disabilities, provision of gender and age-sensitive assistance, explicit protection in law including obligations to disaggregate data to make visible GBV against women and girls with disabilities. States must make law enforcement, judicial processes, and legal information physically and procedurally accessible to women and girls with disabilities. This includes providing reasonable accommodations, such as sign language interpreters and easy-to-read formats, and ensuring their testimony is given equal weight.

•        Include a provision on the right to equality and non-discrimination as a substantive right, covering a non-exhaustive wide-ranging list of factors including sex, gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, health status (including HIV), albinism, socio-economic status, incarceration, type of work, orphanhood, and political affiliation.

•        Create state obligations to recognise and prohibit intersecting forms of violence as a form of discrimination. The recognition includes developing or updating anti-discrimination laws to recognise that people can experience more than one ground of discrimination at the same time. Legal remedies must recognise and remedy intersectional violence.

•        States must ensure that specific needs of marginalised or high-risk groups that give rise to vulnerability are met. The obligations include provision of holistic services that respond to their needs, removal of barriers that impact their ability to access justice, and removal of factors that exacerbate their vulnerability to violence.

•        Develop anti-discrimination laws prohibiting all forms of exclusion and bias.

•        Promote diversity, inclusion, and pluralism through education and orientation.

Article 8: State Obligations to End Violence Against Women in the World of Work

•        Prohibits all forms of violence in the workplace, affirming the right of women to a violence-free work environment.

•        Extends protections to both formal and informal economies, as well as cyberspace, acknowledging the diversity of women’s labour.

•        Covers all women, regardless of employment status, and applies to both public and private sectors.

•        References fair labour practices like maternity/paternity leave, childcare, and equal pay, leaving room for progressive interpretation.

•        Potentially aligns with ILO Convention 190 and Recommendation 206.

•        The ‘world of work’ is undefined, creating uncertainty about coverage—such as commuting, domestic work, and gig economy roles.

•        The Article fails to explicitly recognise sexual harassment and provides limited prevention measures.

•        Contains no provisions for monitoring, data collection, or budget allocation to ensure implementation.

•        Include legal standards on protection of women from sexual harassment in the world of work, including expansive definitions of work based on ILO C190.

•        Mandate preventive obligations (risk assessments, workplace policies, awareness campaigns).

•        Establish monitoring frameworks, enforcement mechanisms, and budget allocations to make Article 8 meaningful.

•        Include a subsection that obligates states to ensure that girls are protected from all forms of economic exploitation and from performing any work that interferes with their right to education, or work that is hazardous, and harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development.

Article 9: State Obligations to Protect Girls in the World of Work

•        Focuses on protection rather than prevention and prohibition, failing to explicitly name or prohibit violence.

•        The ‘world of work’ is undefined, leaving uncertainty about whether it includes informal work, apprenticeships, or digital economies, where girls increasingly face exploitation.

•        The phrase ‘harmful labour practices’ lacks legal precision compared to ‘hazardous labour,’ weakening interpretive clarity.

•        References to ‘factors that compel girls to undertake harmful work’ are vague and fail to capture socio-economic realities across Africa.

•        By tying obligations to national laws, Article 9 risks regression where domestic protections are weak, undermining AU-level commitments.

•        Collapse Article 9 into Article 8 to unify and strengthen protections for women and girls in the world of work under one framework.

•        Alternatively, replace Article 9 with a provision that sets a normative standard for protection of girls from violence in schools and other educational institutions.

Article 10: Preventive Measures

•        Article 10 acknowledges the role of custom, tradition, and religion in shaping norms that sustain or challenge violence.

•        Mentions a multi-sectoral approach to prevention, suggesting recognition that violence is a cross-cutting societal issue.

•        The term ‘preventive measures’ is undefined, leaving the provision conceptually hollow.

•        No reference to evidence-based frameworks or the extensive evidence from women’s rights movements on what works to prevent VAWG.

•        Fails to adopt gender-transformative approaches: focuses on awareness-raising rather than shifting social norms and gendered power relations.

•        The vague reference to ‘strengthening African culture’ risks reinforcing patriarchal stereotypes instead of dismantling them.

•        Conflates response with prevention without making linkages to how they are connected. For example, while sanctions are vital for justice, they do not automatically deter or prevent violence.

•        Lacks emphasis on intersectional, trauma-informed, survivor-centred prevention strategies.

•        Reframe from ‘preventive measures’ to ‘state obligations to prevent gender-based violence,’ which indicates that this provision goes beyond listing actions or strategies as measures and instead focuses on the broader overarching legal and moral duty to take those actions.

•        Create specific state obligations that target gender-transformative prevention grounded in power analysis and norm change. These obligations include: legal standards establishing clear state obligations to prevent, including addressing root causes and underlying drivers of VAWG, which are primarily gender inequality, discriminatory social norms, and power imbalances; establish National Prevention Action Plans with measurable targets, clear timelines, and adequate funding; obligations to challenge and shift norms including through the use of positive masculinity and enabling a positive African cultural context. However, it is important to clearly define positive masculinity and African values centred on the lived realities of women and girls to ensure that these concepts are not deployed in ways that further exacerbate VAWG.

•        Replace ambiguous references to ‘African values’ with rights-based commitments consistent with existing standards.

•        Create normative standards that anchor prevention on evidence-based standards, centre survivors to ensure inclusion and accountability.

•        Provide normative standards and state obligations on how to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and punish femicide, and to provide remedy to victims’ families and communities.

•        Include state obligations on addressing femicide as a systematic form of GBV rather than isolated incidents, where fatal outcomes represent the extreme end of everyday gender-based violence.

•        Develop clear accountability and reporting mechanisms for states to monitor and report progress on ending femicide.

Article 11: Protection and Support

•        Broad recognition of physical, sexual, psychological, and economic violence, including women’s property and asset rights.

•        Establishes medical and psychosocial services as non-negotiable survivor rights.

•        Mentions Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) and women’s organisations as key protection actors.

•        Ambiguity on whether protection extends to preventive measures or is limited to post-violence responses.

•        Minimum standards are a programmatic framework that is not typically used in human rights law standards since they are not enforceable.

•        The absence of trauma-informed, survivor-centred language weakens accountability and transformative potential.

•        Limiting the protection to WHRDs working on GBV: Article 11(2) of CEVAWG aims to support and protect WHRDs. It states that ‘state parties shall strengthen, and engage with, and protect, women and girls human rights defenders and other women’s rights organisations in the prevention and ending of all forms of violence against women and girls.’ WHRDs do not only work to prevent and end all forms of violence against women. They are often targeted when working on land rights, political dissent, and environmental justice, among other issues. Limiting protection to WHRDs working solely to prevent and end GBV fails to capture the full rationale for safeguarding them.

•        Limited state obligations: The state obligations outlined in CEVAWG are also limited. The Convention mandates states to strengthen, engage with, and protect WHRDs. Standards for protecting WHRDs are well recognised. These standards include protection from threats and violence, ensuring a safe environment for their work, and establishing protection mechanisms. None of these obligations are explicitly included in CEVAWG.

•        Replace vague ‘minimum standards’ with binding legislative and policy obligations.

•        Expand services to include shelters, hotlines, rape crisis centres, and legal aid.

•        Guarantee unconditional protection for WHRDs and feminist organisations.

•        Ground protection in African realities, recognizing NGOs’ pivotal role in service delivery.

•        Ensure survivor-centred, trauma-informed, and rights-based protection frameworks.

•        Mandate amendment of discriminatory laws that undermine women’s protection and access to justice.

Article 12: Access to Justice

•        Recognises state obligations to establish a victim-centred justice system, integrating justice and security responses.

•        Identifies key aspects of justice: fair and non-discriminatory procedures, effective investigations, protection of victims and witnesses, and access to remedies.

•        Mentions privacy and confidentiality safeguards, as well as protective orders and restitution/compensation, aligning with human rights principles.

•        Basic state obligations on access to justice are not mentioned under the Convention. The existing obligations focus on establishing a victim-centred approach without grounding it in core access to justice obligations.

•        There is no guarantee for all victims to broad access to justice, and states have no corresponding obligations.

•        Strengthening of justice systems including independence, impartiality, adequate resourcing, fair and public hearings, and reforms to make justice systems accessible is not addressed.

•        There is no overall right to remedy. Article 12(f) limits the right to restitution, compensation, and provision of protection, restitution, and occupation orders.

•        There are no transformational remedies—approaches designed not just to stop individual acts of violence or provide immediate aid, but to actively change the underlying patriarchal norms and unequal power relations that cause and perpetuate gender-based discrimination and violence.

•        There is no duty to promote legal awareness.

•        Include a provision that guarantees a right to access to justice which is fair, impartial, and effective. Legal processes and resolution are handled within a reasonable time. Fair and public hearings are ensured.

•        Include a provision that guarantees a right to remedy including transformative remedies.

•        Remove legal barriers that deprive women of access to justice: failure to criminalise marital rape, no remedies for victims of sexual violence perpetrated by minors, prescription for adult survivors of child sexual abuse, corroboration in rape cases, and evidence of previous sexual history.

•        Include a provision that mandates states to strengthen the justice system including judicial independence, impartiality, and adequate resourcing.

•        Provide legal aid particularly to women who interact with the criminal justice system as a result of exposure to GBV and remove financial barriers that impede access to justice (e.g., payment for medical documents that record medical injuries in rape cases).

•        Include a provision to promote legal awareness.

•        Mandate systematic data collection and reporting on VAWG cases, prosecutions, and convictions to strengthen accountability and guide enforcement of national laws.

Article 13: Collaboration and Coordination

•        Uses weak, non-binding language like ‘foster’ and ‘encourage,’ which undermines enforceability. Compared to AU standards, such as the Maputo Protocol Article 26, ACRWC monitoring provisions, and Malabo Convention obligations, the verb ‘foster’ creates no duty to act. States can claim ‘efforts’ without demonstrating results, avoid measurable action, or adopt symbolic partnerships with no substance.

•        Risks promoting tokenistic collaboration by failing to define roles and responsibilities, establish coordination structures, or require mechanisms for monitoring and reporting. Without architecture, ‘collaboration’ becomes a hollow principle.

•        No dedicated funding, leaving room for states to delay action under ‘progressive realisation.’ AU norms (Maputo Protocol, SDGEA, Agenda 2063) all emphasise that states must allocate adequate resources.

•        The article lists actors but omits groups essential for combating VAWG and harmful practices, such as women with disabilities, rural women, LGBTQ+ communities, refugees/IDPs, informal workers, and girl-led networks. This contradicts Maputo Protocol (Articles 23 and 24) and ACRWC, both of which require special protection for vulnerable groups.

•        Many African contexts face conflict, displacement, political crisis, and humanitarian emergencies. The article is conflict-blind, offering no guidance on partnerships in conflict or post-conflict settings.

•        No requirement for data sharing, research collaboration, or coordinated evidence-based interventions.

•        No integration with digital or technology-facilitated violence coordination.

•        Use binding language (‘shall establish,’ ‘shall ensure’) rather than vague terms like ‘foster.’

•        Create an obligation on the state to define clear roles and responsibilities of each sector and actor in the context of collaboration and coordination to prevent symbolic or superficial collaboration.

•        Establish a formal coordination mechanism (e.g., national multi-sectoral committee) with clear mandates.

•        Allocate dedicated budgets and technical resources to ensure sustainable, not ad hoc, cooperation.

•        Broaden the scope of coordination to cover both prevention and response, and mandate inclusion of diverse women’s and marginalised groups.

•        Integrate digital and private-sector responsibilities, including tech platforms.

•        Address collaboration in conflict and humanitarian settings, where risks of VAWG escalate.

•        Anchor collaboration in human-rights-based frameworks, ensuring civil society’s independence and equal footing in implementation.

Article 14: Implementation and Monitoring

•        It entrenches existing access to justice challenges by designating the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights as the implementing/monitoring mechanism.

•        The ACHPR’s restrictive interpretation of Article 59(1) of the African Charter enforces blanket secrecy on decisions and pleadings. This practice severely undermines transparency, limits access to justice, and excludes civil society from meaningful participation in holding governments accountable for gender-based violence.

•        Restrictive interpretation of Article 59 of the African Charter on confidentiality limits transparency, public access to information, and CSO participation.

•        Weak enforcement history: only 11% of states are up to date with reporting obligations; and only two communications were referred to the African Court.

•        No survivor-centred mechanism dedicated to gender-based violence.

•        Failure to align with stronger international models like dedicated bodies to monitor conventions (e.g., GREVIO (Istanbul Convention) and MESECVI (Belém do Pará)).

•        Referral to the court is unfeasible due to lack of accessibility for individuals and NGOs, with only six states allowing direct access to the African Court as per Article 34(6) declaration.

•        Establish an independent, expert monitoring body on violence against women and girls.

•        If implementation is given to the ACHPR:

•        Mandate the ACHPR to publish a cause list of all pending cases.

•        Publish summaries of pending cases.

•        Transmit decisions to victims immediately after adoption.

•        If the monitoring function remains with the ACHPR, implementation can be strengthened by:

•        Adopting a progressive interpretation of Article 59 of the African Charter or severing it in accordance with Article 44 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties to guarantee transparency and remove the regressive understanding of confidentiality.

•        Requiring member states to accept the African Court’s jurisdiction under Article 34(6) of the African Court’s Protocol for the purpose of implementing this Convention.

Center for Rights, Education and Awareness

(CREAW)

janeta@fidakenya.org;

info@fidakenya.org

Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa

(ISLA)