Sexual exploitation and trafficking are pervasive across Africa, fuelled by poverty, conflict, climate change, displacement, and cross-border trafficking.
NAIROBI, Kenya – 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, 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.
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