At 81, UN General Assembly advocates demand action to protect women’s rights

The 81st UN General Assembly Wednesday warned of a growing anti-rights pushback threatening to reverse gains made for women and girls.

The concern dominated the latest SHE & Rights session on gender equality, health rights and accountability, jointly hosted by CeHDI and CNS with IPPF, ARROW and APCAT Media.

 Experts said narratives around family values, culture religion and sovereignty are increasingly being used to dilute rights.

They added that while Africa has strong frameworks like the Maputo Protocol and African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the challenge now is implementation.

Registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Dr Robert Eno, said there is no indication the proposed African Charter on family sovereignty and values will be before the AU Assembly before February 2027 and clarified that it was not proposed by the AU.

He warned against complacency saying:  “This is about a deeper struggle over how societies define family, culture, religion and equality.”

He cited ongoing discrimination, unequal inheritance, divorce restrictions, and failure to recognise marital rape.

“Gender equality should not be framed as a threat to family or religion, but as something that strengthens them,” Dr Eno said.

He urged advocates to use human stories and engage communities, schools, faith institutions and social media, warning that rights meetings risk “preaching to the converted” if they don’t.

He pointed to the Maputo Protocol, African Children’s Charter and AU gender commitments as foundations, but said, “the next frontier is implementation and accountability.”

Rehema Namukose of Musawah said anti-rights actors are misusing ‘family’ to block equality. Laws on marriage, divorce and custody are delayed, while “family protection” bills restricting bodily autonomy are rising in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, often with external funding.

She said the same framing justifies child marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM) and denial of property rights. In some Muslim family-law systems, male guardianship makes women’s rights conditional on ‘obedience.’