As part of celebrations marking the International Women’s Day, a coalition comprising over one hundred organisations throughout Africa launched a global campaign that will focus its energy on the struggle to end discrimination and violence against women in Africa.

This group of activists will dedicate their time and efforts to calling upon their governments to ensure respect for women’s rights; it is called Africa for Women’s Right, Ratify and Respect. In The Gambia, they are doing this in collaboration with the Female Lawyers Association (FLAG) which is serving as specialist focal point for the campaign. This was revealed in a press release obtained from FLAG.

The campaign activities, across some 40 countries, will take the form of marches, demonstrations, parades, workshops, as well as radio and television programmes, and all of these will carry a united message. Launched at the initiative of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) with 5 regional non-governmental organisations - African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS), Femmes Africa Solidarite (FAS), Women’s Aid Collective (WACOL), Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), and Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) - together with their national member and partners, the campaign calls on states to ratify international and regional texts on women’s rights - the protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa and the optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)- and to respect their obligations in law and in practice.

The release states: "We have come together to say with a single voice: enough is enough!" The members are issuing a call to all African governments to face up to their responsibilities.  "The elimination of violence and discrimination against women is above all a question of political will," it stated.

The release went on to add that strengthening respect for women’s human rights requires reform of the legal framework, and that the campaign therefore demands the reform of discriminatory laws, the adoption of laws to protect women from violence and discrimination, calling on all African governments to take all necessary measures to ensure the respect of such laws in practice. "Women in Africa know that nothing will be achieved without a struggle. Our collective duty, women and men, is to support them," the release concluded.