By Elaine Okeke Martin
This year UN Women announced the theme for International Women’s Day, 8 March 2021 (IWD 2021) as, “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.”
And I want to highlight this day for all women. It’s a celebration day and a day to honour our commitment to continue to support women´s right. We support #ChooseToChange this year by International Women´s Day.
“We are all born equal irrespective of sex, race, religion and creed. This pre-amble of the Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that women’s rights is not a mere act of charity but a principle which is one of humanity and a pre-cursor to inclusiveness and prosperity. This principle is further reaffirmed in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, consecrated in the Proto-col to the Charter on Human and People’s Rights in Africa on the Rights of Women and by prior continental and global conventions and policies on hu-man and women’s rights and actualized by the AU theme of 2016 “human rights with a particular focus on the rights of women”. Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Chairperson, African Union Commission
Laws that Discriminate against Women It is now widely recognized that gaps in legislations and polices as well as lack of implementation and enforcement of legislation perpetuates and rein-forces de jure and de facto discrimination against women. Art. 2 of the Charter prohibits discrim-ination, including on the basis of sex, and art. 18 ( 3 ) of the Charter obliges States to eliminate all discrimination against women and to ensure the protection of the rights of women as stipulat-ed in international declarations and conventions. Art. 2 of the Protocol require States to take positive measures to address inequalities between women and men in State efforts to ensure that women enjoy their rights. The Protocol acknowledges the need to address both de jure and de facto discrimination and specifically to challenge gender stereotyping.42
For full read more : https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WRGS/WomensRightsinAfrica_singlepages.pdf
Guinea’s new constitution, recognizes the principle of equality between men and women under the law.
Sierra Leone has recently removed discriminatory clauses against women in its Constitution
AU Gender Policy The AU Gender Policy was adopt-ed in 2009 and is aimed at “ the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment in Africa ”. Through time bound goals contained in the AU Gen-der Policy, Member States agreed to achieve full ratifi-cation and enforcement of the Maputo Protocol by 2015 and to its domestication by 2020, the deadline for full ratification has not been met.
