Rights advocates have warned of growing efforts to roll back women’s and girls’ rights, saying appeals to “family values”, culture, religion and national sovereignty are increasingly being deployed to resist gender-equality reforms.
The warning came during a SHE & Rights session held ahead of the 81st United Nations General Assembly, where speakers examined gender equality, health rights and human rights accountability.
The advocates said Africa had established a strong regional human rights framework, including the legally binding Maputo Protocol and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, but cautioned that weak implementation, limited accountability and inadequate community engagement could undermine years of progress.
The session was jointly hosted by the Global Center for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI) and CNS, in collaboration with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), and Asia Pacific Media Alliance for Health, Gender and Development Justice (APCAT Media).
Dr Robert Eno, Registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, said there was currently no indication that the proposed African Charter on “family sovereignty and values” would be considered by the African Union (AU) Assembly.
Eno stressed that the draft charter was not proposed by the AU and would have to undergo a lengthy institutional process before reaching the Assembly.
He therefore expressed doubt that it would be before the AU Assembly by February 2027.
However, he warned against complacency, saying the issue went beyond the proposed charter to a broader struggle over the meaning of family, culture, religion, equality and human dignity.
He pointed to discriminatory practices such as unequal inheritance rights, restrictions on divorce and the failure to recognise marital rape as continuing realities for many women and girls.
Eno urged human rights advocates to complement legal arguments with dialogue, persuasion and personal stories, arguing that gender equality should not be portrayed as a threat to family, culture or religion.
He also warned that human rights organisations risk “preaching to the converted” when they fail to engage communities and individuals who disagree with or fear the human rights agenda.
He called for engagement in homes, schools, places of worship, traditional institutions, communities and social media.
Despite the challenges, Eno said Africa had made significant normative progress through instruments including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Maputo Protocol and African Children’s Charter, as well as AU gender-parity commitments and regional human rights jurisprudence.
He said the priority should now be implementation and accountability, noting that treaties and court judgments could not improve people’s lives unless governments acted on them.
Meanwhile, Rehema Namukose, Senior Regional Programme Officer for sub-Saharan Africa at Musawah, said the language of “family values” was increasingly being used to delay gender-equality reforms.
She said reforms concerning marriage, divorce, custody and women’s equal rights were being stalled in some countries, while restrictive “family protection” bills gained traction, sometimes backed by external far-right funding.
Namukose cited Ghana, Kenya and Uganda as examples of countries where legislative and political developments could restrict bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive rights.
She said similar narratives were also being used to justify harmful practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation, as well as women’s economic disadvantage through unpaid care work and unequal property and inheritance rights.
According to her, concepts such as “family values”, “cultural integrity”, “sovereignty” and “national cohesion” were being used to preserve patriarchal power rather than protect families.
Samah Hadid, Global Executive Director of Musawah, said the anti-rights movement was becoming increasingly coordinated, better resourced and more effective in using religion, culture and tradition to justify discrimination.
She said Musawah was responding by developing egalitarian Islamic arguments supporting women’s rights and training activists, lawyers and judges to use them.
Hadid called for cooperation among secular, religious, cultural and human rights actors, saying family, religion and tradition could be compatible with equality and justice for women and girls.
On the African Union Convention on Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls (AU CEVAWG), Fatou Bantou Salah of the Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA) called for a pause in the ratification process to allow for a comprehensive legal review.
Salah said nine AU member states had signed the convention while The Gambia and Ghana had ratified it. Fifteen ratifications are required for the convention to enter into force.
She cited concerns over limited civil society consultation during the drafting process, unpublished preparatory materials, conceptual and substantive gaps, and weaknesses in state due-diligence obligations.
ISLA’s “Pause for Purpose” campaign, she said, was not calling for the convention to be abandoned but for its ratification to be temporarily halted while its legal framework was examined.
The campaign proposes an independent article-by-article review, comparison with existing African human rights instruments and consultations with survivors, women’s rights groups, lawyers, service providers and affected communities.
In another presentation, Vimbai Kapurura, Executive Director of Girls Not Brides and Founder and Executive Director of Women Unlimited Eswatini, highlighted both progress and persistent gaps in adolescent health and education in Eswatini.
She said the country’s adolescent birth rate had fallen from 87 births per 1,000 girls aged 15–19 to 78, while early childbearing before age 18 declined from 17 per cent to 12 per cent between 2022 and 2025.
However, modern contraceptive use among sexually active unmarried girls aged 15–19 remained at about 51 per cent, while unmet need for family planning stood at 46 per cent.
Kapurura said access to health infrastructure alone did not guarantee quality, dignity or stigma-free care, urging policymakers to address poverty, education, access to information, family circumstances and social expectations surrounding adolescent pregnancy.
She said Eswatini’s November 2026 Universal Periodic Review would provide an opportunity to determine whether policy commitments were translating into improvements for rural girls and underserved communities.
The session also examined efforts to develop a legally binding international treaty on the human rights of older persons.
Khalid Hassine, Secretary of the UN Inter-Governmental Working Group on the Human Rights of Older Persons, stressed the importance of civil society participation in the treaty process.
Shobha Shukla, Chairperson of Development Justice for Older Persons and a person with lived experience, called for the proposed framework to reflect the realities of older people, particularly older women, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities and other marginalised groups.
She said older people should be recognised as rights holders and contributors to families, communities, economies and public life rather than merely as recipients of charity.
Hassine also highlighted the gender dimension of ageing, noting that older women require particular attention in addressing ageism, violence and discrimination.
The next meeting of the UN Inter-Governmental Working Group on the proposed treaty is scheduled for October 26–30, 2026, while the International Day of Older Persons on October 1 is expected to provide another opportunity to build evidence and political momentum around the process.
