Open letter to UN WOMEN on AUCEVAWG

Open Letter To: 

The Executive Director, UNWOMEN

Ms Sima Sami Bahous

The Deputy Executive Director, UNWOMEN

Ms Nyaradzai Gumbonzvada 

19 March 2026 

Re: Rights, Justice and Action for ALL Women and Girls in the African Union Convention on Ending Violence against Women and Girls (AU CEVAWG) 

We issue this open letter on the final day of the 2026 Commission on the Status of Women, themed ‘Rights, Action, and Justice for All Women and Girls,’ to bring to your attention a matter of concern. Despite multiple emails requesting a meeting with UNWOMEN to discuss RIGHTS and JUSTICE for African women and girls, especially in relation to the African Union Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (AU CEVAWG), we have yet to receive any ACTION from UNWOMEN. We have partnered with UNWOMEN on numerous occasions, providing our expertise on access to justice and accountability mechanisms, and we hope for constructive engagement on this critical issue. 

While the adoption of a continental instrument addressing violence against women and girls is, in principle, a significant milestone, the AU CEVAWG in its current form represents a regression from existing African and international human rights standards, undermining the very objective it purports to advance. These concerns are not speculative. They are grounded in a comprehensive legal analysis of the Convention’s text, structure, and development process, as well as in documented engagement with Member States and civil society actors across the continent. 

We note with increasing unease the failure of the UN WOMEN to comprehensively address the glaring gaps that are present, persistent and pressing in the text of the first-ever treaty on the African continent to address the prevalent issue of violence against women and girls. The objectives and the promise of the AU CEVAWG are indeed to address the violation of women’s rights and fundamental freedoms through the different manifestations of violence. However, the Convention is neither sufficiently robust, coherent, nor enforceable to achieve its noble objectives. Further, the AU CEVAWG falls woefully short in achieving either rights, justice or action for all women and girls across the continent. 

As the lead United Nations entity on gender equality, UN WOMEN engages with Member States, civil society organisations and African women’s movements to advance laws, institutions and services that dismantle discrimination and end violence against women. It is therefore prudent and imperative to ensure that the engagement of UN WOMEN on the AU CEVAWG seeks to strengthen rather than weaken existing African and international human rights protections. UN WOMEN also engages in robust research and analysis through its research mandate, and it is therefore critical to engage its mandate in ensuring alignment and coherence of the AU CEVAWG with existing normative standards. 

RIGHTS 

Regression in Legal Protection: Taking Away Existing Rights

In an era of increasing regression of rights and the systemic removal of protections by anti-rights actors globally and on the African continent, the AU CEVAWG must offer unequivocal protection for women and girls. The rights guaranteed in the Convention must be tethered to existing protections in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter), Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) and Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Protections must be unambiguous and offer comprehensive legal guarantees that are impervious to attacks by anti-rights actors. This is, however, not the case, as the legal analysis of the AU CEVAWG uncovers several areas where further strengthening will be necessary to ensure alignment and, indeed, to guarantee Rights, Justice and Action for ALL Women and Girls. 

First, the Convention does not consistently anchor the right to be free from violence in equality and non-discrimination, despite the widely recognised understanding that discrimination on the basis of gender is the structural root cause of violence against women and girls. Existing frameworks, including the Maputo Protocol and CEDAW jurisprudence, frame gender-based violence as a manifestation of inequality. Where this grounding is not explicit, there is a risk that violence may be treated as isolated criminal acts rather than as systemic human rights violations requiring structural remedies. As a later treaty, AU CEVAWG risks being relied upon by states as the new benchmark, creating space for downward harmonisation of protection standards. As a result, African women may experience reduced legal protection, as governments invoke the Convention to justify weaker obligations than those already recognised under existing treaties. 

Second, legal protection depends on the legal definition. AU CEVAWG’s definitions are conceptually weak and operationally ineffective.

  • Violence in digital contexts is framed as “cyberspace” rather than comprehensively addressing technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). “Cyberspace” is defined as a zone rather than an emerging form of violence that requires a holistic response. The AU CEVAWG provides a narrow and limited conceptualisation of TFGBV and fails to recognise that technology is increasingly being leveraged to exploit and violate women and girls. Further to a limited definition, cyberspace in the Convention appears as an add-on, always framed as ‘and in cyberspace’ in Articles 1(b), 1(k), 3, 5, 8, 10, and the Preamble, without coherent and specific state obligations thereby limiting rights and justice for women and girls.
  • Femicide is merely mentioned in Articles 1, 10, and Preamble but is not operationalised; no normative standards exist on prevention, investigation, prosecution, or accountability. The Convention defines ‘femicide’ without locating it within the broader established framework of gender-related killings.
  • Women Human Rights Defenders are defined in a way that excludes non-nationals, despite transnational advocacy, displacement, and migration being realities across Africa. The exclusion of non-nationals introduces discrimination in the protections guaranteed to women human rights defenders.
  • Family is defined as “as… defined or provided for by a state party”. The AU CEVAWG, therefore, effectively removes the protection of the family from international law. This poses a regression of protections as multiple states repealed  post-independence legal regimes that recognise the right to equality but clawed-back application in private matters. The AU CEVAWG therefore fails to regulate violence within the family. Multiple studies have shown that home is where the hurt is, women across the continent are least safe within their homes.[1] There are no substantive provisions on domestic or intra-family violence, despite it being one of the most prevalent forms of violence against women. The family is implicitly treated as a protective space, rather than acknowledged as a frequent site of abuse. This framing opens space for cultural and sovereignty-based arguments to shield violence from legal scrutiny. As a result, women and girls facing violence in the home risk reduced protection, reinforcing the historical exclusion of the private sphere from accountability. 

Without clear standards on prevention, investigation, prosecution, and monitoring, there is a risk that recognition may remain symbolic rather than transformative. Forms of violence that fall outside these narrow definitions risk being legally invisible, leaving women without enforceable protection. Given the Convention’s glaring gaps in guaranteeing rights to women, UN WOMEN must reconsider its approach and support for the Convention in its current form. 

JUSTICE 

Justice Delayed…Justice Denied

While Article 12 of the AU CEVAWG centers victims in guaranteeing access to justice, it fails to mention critical state obligations established in international law, the net result being a watering down of existing international and regional normative standards. Article 12 fails to address state obligations to strengthen justice systems by ensuring independence, impartiality, adequate resourcing and fair and public hearings to make justice systems accessible. Further, Article 12 fails to guarantee an overall right to remedy as a critical component of access to justice. Article 12(f) does not address the necessity of transformative remedies which actively change underlying patriarchal norms and unequal power relations that cause and perpetuate gender-based discrimination and violence. Consequently, Article 12 is insufficient in establishing the rights to access to justice for victims that is critical to ensuring the enjoyment of rights guaranteed in the AU CEVAWG. 

Article 14 of the AU CEVAWG designates the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) as the primary body for implementation and monitoring. While this approach aligns institutionally with the African human rights system, it also raises practical considerations. Regional mechanisms for the protection of rights are engaged when domestic laws have failed and are mostly a measure of last resort for individuals seeking recourse. The ACHPR currently operates under confidentiality procedures linked to Article 59(1) of the African Charter, which have implications for transparency and public accessibility of decisions. The ACHPR’s approach and interpretation of Article 59(1) is that all decisions, pleadings and communications remain confidential even post-adoption; the ACHPR rarely conduct public hearings neither does it publish official or accessible lists of the pending cases or upcoming decisions meaning that stakeholders cannot track the progress or subject matter of cases; litigants and NGOs are prohibited from discussing their own cases publicly and due to the lack of accessible information; and civil society actors are unable to file amicus submissions or monitor implementation, thus closing the door on broader collaboration and public accountability. 

Assigning primary implementation responsibilities to the ACHPR exposes the Convention to the same structural barriers that currently hinder the ACHPR’s effectiveness with wide-ranging consequences, including delays in justice for survivors of violence; reduced state accountability; lack of transparency; and an erosion of public trust that ultimately denies women and girls their access to justice. This is untenable not only under the backdrop of this year’s CSW theme, but as a relegation of women’s right to access justice to a distant periphery. If CEVAWG is to function effectively, it will be critical to ensure that implementation mechanisms have sufficient transparency, capacity, and authority to guarantee accountability and build public trust. 

ACTIONS 

Consequently, as we come to a close on this year’s CSW in order to ensure Rights, Justice and Action for ALL Women and Girls, we urge UN WOMEN to reconsider its position on the AU CEVAWG, particularly regarding its support for ratification of the treaty, and to engage in processes that recognise the voices of African women and girls. 

Specifically, we call on the UN WOMEN to do the following:

  1. Urgently and formally engage on the substantive legal deficiencies of the CEVAWG;
  2. Conduct and publish independent legal assessments of the CEVAWG’s consistency with the African Charter, the Maputo Protocol, CEDAW and other international human rights law;
  3. Commit to convening inclusive dialogue with women’s rights organisations, legal experts, and African women to critically examine the Convention’s substance and process and consider pathways for revision;
  4. Commit to centering the voices of African women in all campaigns and efforts related to the AU CEVAWG;
  5. Considering the concerns raised, consider pausing support for ratification campaigns for the CEVAWG pending completion of a transparent and independent legal review of the Convention and inclusive consultations with African women’s rights organisations and legal experts; and
  6. Respond to our emails requesting a conversation about CEVAWG. 

Finally, we urge UN WOMEN to:

  1. Call for a Pause in the Ratification process to ensure that the CEVAWG in its entirety is fit for purpose;
  2. Call for the African Union to adopt a resolution calling for the revision of the CEVAWG; and
  3. Call for revision to align the CEVAWG with existing African and international standards on gender based-violence and develop new standards based on evidence and emerging consensus on what it takes to end violence against women and girls. 

Signed

Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa

cevawg@the-isla.org

www.aucevawg.org

#Pauseforpurpose

[1] Bright Opoku Ahinkorah, Polygyny and intimate partner violence in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from 16 cross-sectional demographic and health surveys, SSM – Population Health, Volume 13, 2021, 100729, ISSN 2352-8273, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827321000045; Refuge for Women and Children against Domestic Violence, Local Lifelines: The Importance of Domestic Abuse Community-Based Services, June 2023.