East African Business Week: Uganda ratifies protocol on African women rights, by Joseph Olanyo:
Kampala – Uganda has ratified the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.
The protocol, also known as the Maputo Protocol, was adopted by the Heads of State and Government at the 2nd Ordinary Session of Assembly of the African Union (AU) convened in Maputo on July 11, 2003.
At the occasion of the Opening of the 17th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the AU, in Kampala recently, Uganda became the 28th African Union (AU) Member to ratify.
Uganda signed the Protocol in 2004, but became a member this year (2010). . . .
The Maputo Protocol comprehensively enshrines civil and politicalrights; economic, social and cultural rights; the rights to developmentand peace and reproductive and sexual rights. It provides a legalframework for addressing gender inequality and the underlying aspectsthat perpetuate women’s subordination.
For the first time in international law, it explicitly sets forththe reproductive rights of women. In another first, the Maputo Protocolexplicitly calls for the legal prohibition of female genitalmutilation. It calls for an end to all forms of violence against womenincluding unwanted or forced sex, whether it takes place in private orin public and outlaws the exploitation and abuse of women inadvertising and pornography. . . .