Celebrating Pan African Women's Day/Celebration de la Journee Panafricaine de la Femme.

• Author: Musa, Roselynn

29th September 2005 marks the commemoration of yet another Pan African Women's Day. Many African women, African women's human rights activists, media establishments and other defenders who are supposed to be the celebrants do not know of the existence of such a day or know what is being celebrated. Isn't it astonishing that most of 'the celebrants' did not regard the day with any historical significance? But was it really like any other day? How did it come about? What makes the day worth celebrating? These are some of the questions this article will attempt to answer.

Theme

The theme of this year's Pan African Women's Day celebration is "Realising Women's Human Rights through the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa" (Hereinafter referred to as the Protocol.) The Heads of States and Governments of the African Union in Maputo, Mozambique in July 2003 adopted the Protocol, promising to ratify and domesticate it by July 2004. It is now almost two and a half years since, yet they have not made good their promise.

The Protocol is a legal framework that African women could use in exercising their rights and which African states could use in protecting and promoting the rights of women. It is to come into force thirty days after the fifteenth country has signed and deposited its article of ratification. Up until now, thirteen countries (1) have ratified the Protocol and the remaining two will be added hopefully before the end of December 2005.

This is thanks to the advocacy efforts of the Solidarity on African Women's Human Rights (SOAWR) coalition (2), made up of a group of 19 civil society organisations that pooled their strength and resources to carry out campaigns all over the continent for the ratification of the protocol, believing that a tree does not make a forest. With ratification from thirteen countries and just two more to go, one may be tempted to heave a sigh of relief and shout (1)victory at last', but we have to remind ourselves that 'it is not yet uhuru (1).

Content of the Protocol

The protocol reflects the history, values and traditions of Africa. It is a regional human rights instrument, which seeks to combine African values with international norms by promoting individual duties and collective rights in addition to internationally recognised human rights. One is tempted to ask if it does not amount to duplicating what other international human rights instruments to which most African countries are signatories, have already stated. The answer is a clear 'No'. The Protocol, described as home grown, addresses issues specific to African women that are not covered by other conventions. Issues like the right to inheritance, widowhood, promotion of equal access to and participation in decision--making, rights of elderly women, rights of physically challenged women, women under conflict situations, pregnant women, nursing mothers, harmful traditional practices and HIV/AIDS. The Protocol simultaneously covers other human rights stipulated in the United Nations Charter, 1946; Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR),1948, Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), 1979; Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), 1990; and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR), 1981.

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