History is in the making!
South Sudan has become the 43rd African country to officially ratify the Maputo Protocol.
This follows the monumental step by South Sudan Minister of Gender, Child and Social Welfare, Honourable Aya Benjamin Warille, who officially deposited the Maputo Protocol to the African Union in June 2023.
According to the Women, Gender and Development Directorate (WGDD) of the African Union Commission, the Maputo Protocol remains one of the most progressive legal instruments providing a comprehensive
set of human rights for African women to date.
The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), unlike any other women’s human rights instrument, details wide-ranging and substantive human rights for women covering the entire spectrum of civil and political, economic, social, and cultural as well as environmental rights.
This milestone in South Sudan has taken years to come to fruition and Young Women for Awareness, Agency, Advocacy, and Accountability (YW4A), through its partnership with young women advocates, women’s rights and technical organizations, as well as faith-based organizations, contributed to this achievement through advocacy efforts since its inception in 2021.
Under the YW4A Initiative, with technical guidance and support from Equality Now, the partnership engaged with high-level government policymakers, including the Ministry of Gender, Social Welfare, and Religious Affairs, to advocate for the ratification of the Maputo Protocol, among other instruments such as the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
In 2022, synergized efforts under the YW4A Initiative and the Spotlight Initiative Africa Regional Programme, resulted in Equality Now convening civil society organizations to create and implement advocacy and movement-building strategies to promote the ratification of the Maputo Protocol.
These efforts directly contributed to a June 2022 technical visit to South Sudan by the African Union Commission (AUC) Women Gender and Youth Directorate, a partner in the Spotlight Initiative, to advocate for the ratification of the Maputo Protocol. During the visit, key government officials, including South Sudan’s Vice President H.E. Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior, made statements supporting the ratification of all women’s rights treaties on gender equality and women’s rights, including the Maputo Protocol.
In preparation for the visit, the YW4A partners in South Sudan participated in the build-up to the planned ratification mission by the SOAWR Coalition supported by Equality Now and STEWARDWOMEN. This involved a series of constructive dialogues with government actors and civil society organizations under the auspices of the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations on the Ratification of Maputo Protocol in South Sudan (CCORPS), which has been advocating for the ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) since 2013.
The YW4A partners took part in the deliberations and YWCA South Sudan, Centre for Inclusive Governance Peace and Justice (CIGPJ), and one young woman were appointed to a committee tasked with following up on the status of the Protocol with the National Legislative Assembly and the Ministries for Gender and Justice.
Although the ratification mission was held bilaterally and silently by the AU Commission, the initiatives that went into it contributed to movement-building and the YW4A partners leveraged the coalitions and linkages to strategize on advocacy opportunities and network with other organizations.
Equality Now shares more on the implications of the Protocol and the journey to ratification in South Sudan.
