Rising attacks against health and gender rights are threatening the global AIDS response. No wonder is a special session on this issue hosted at the world's largest AIDS conference - the 26th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2026) - was full to capacity. This session put the spotlight on a recent #PauseForPurpose protest organised by a group of African feminists, survivors, women’s rights organisations and legal advocates around the Pan-African Parliament meet on 25th July 2026. This meet was for the African Union Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (AU CEVAWG). They were not there to reject continental action against violence against women and girls. They were there to demand better.
Feminists demanded a single, insistent message: pause, listen, strengthen, then ratify. The protest marked the high-level parliamentary and multi-stakeholder dialogue convened on 25 July 2026 by the Pan-African Parliament, the African Union Commission, and partners. Official accounts framed the gathering 'as a push to accelerate signature, ratification, domestication and implementation' of the African Union Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (AU CEVAWG). The Gambia was celebrated as the first state to ratify. Member states were urged to follow.
The campaign does not oppose a continental treaty on violence against women and girls. It fully supports decisive African action to prevent violence, protect survivors, hold perpetrators and governments accountable, and deliver effective remedies. What it rejects is the rush to ratification of a text it argues is not yet fit for purpose.
"There is no contradiction between urgency and due diligence," Mai Aman said. Violence against women and girls demands urgent action, but urgency cannot justify lowering legal standards. A treaty is legally binding. Once ratified, it will shape national legislation, public policy, court decisions, state reporting and the remedies available to survivors for generations. The central question, therefore, is whether the present text strengthens the protections African women have already secured - particularly through the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, known as the Maputo Protocol - or whether it introduces ambiguity and regression into an area where the law must be clear.
Mai Aman was a keynote speaker at the SHE & Rights session organised at AIDS 2026 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by Global Center for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI), CNS and partners.
First is the process. Many women’s rights organisations, survivors and civil society groups were not meaningfully consulted on the actual draft text. In a campaign survey of approximately 1,500 civil society organisations, only 33% were aware that the convention was being drafted before its adoption, while 93% reported they had not been consulted. Consultation, the campaign insists, must be more than an invitation to endorse a predetermined outcome. It must give women and girls a genuine opportunity to examine the text, raise concerns and influence the final instrument. “A treaty concerning African women cannot be developed without African women,” Aman said.
Second are substantive legal concerns. The convention does not consistently articulate protections as enforceable rights matched by clear state obligations. Several important matters are framed as objectives or principles rather than legal entitlements. It fails to establish a sufficiently strong anti-discrimination framework, even though gender-based discrimination and structural inequality are among the root causes of violence. Critical realities facing African women and girls - female genital mutilation, child marriage, domestic violence, marital rape, trafficking and conflict-related sexual violence - are not adequately addressed. Emerging forms of violence such as femicide and cyber violence are mentioned, yet the definitions and corresponding obligations remain insufficient.
Language concerning the “family” and “African values” also requires careful scrutiny. Without legal clarity, such phrasing can be mobilised by anti-rights actors to justify practices that restrict women’s autonomy or expose women and girls to violence. The Maputo Protocol already provides strong and explicit protections in several of these areas. A new treaty, the campaign argues, must build upon that foundation. It must not weaken, confuse or retreat from standards African women have fought hard to establish.
Third are questions of implementation, monitoring and accountability. A treaty must clearly identify what governments are required to do, how compliance will be assessed, and what remedies are available when states fail. Good intentions and aspirational language are not enough. Arguments that weaknesses can be corrected after ratification through general comments, guidelines or litigation are unconvincing, Mai Aman of ISLA said. Soft-law guidance cannot repair defects in a binding treaty. Litigation is expensive, slow and inaccessible to many survivors. Amending a treaty after ratification is politically and procedurally difficult. The safest and most responsible course is to correct the text before states become legally bound by it.
Therefore, at the Pan-African Parliament dialogue, the campaign and allied organisations advanced four concrete requests.
(Shobha Shukla is a feminist, health and development justice advocate, and an award-winning founding Managing Editor and Executive Director of CNS (Citizen News Service). She serves as Chairperson of Global AMR Media Alliance (GAMA), Host and Coordinator of SHE & Rights (Sexual Health with Equity & Rights), President of Asia Pacific Media Alliance for Health, Gender and Development Justice (APCAT Media), and founder leader of DJOP (Development Justice for Older Persons) initiative. She was also the Lead Discussant for SDG-3 at United Nations inter-governmental High Level Political Forum 2025. GAMA , led by her, received the AMR One Health Emerging Leaders and Outstanding Talents Award at UN High Level Ministerial Conference on AMR 2024. Follow her on X @shobha1shukla or read her writings here www.bit.ly/ShobhaShukla)
published in:
Mai Aman was a keynote speaker at the SHE & Rights session organised at AIDS 2026 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by Global Center for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI), CNS and partners.
Pause for Purpose’s legal assessment identifies concerns at 3 levels
First is the process. Many women’s rights organisations, survivors and civil society groups were not meaningfully consulted on the actual draft text. In a campaign survey of approximately 1,500 civil society organisations, only 33% were aware that the convention was being drafted before its adoption, while 93% reported they had not been consulted. Consultation, the campaign insists, must be more than an invitation to endorse a predetermined outcome. It must give women and girls a genuine opportunity to examine the text, raise concerns and influence the final instrument. “A treaty concerning African women cannot be developed without African women,” Aman said.
Second are substantive legal concerns. The convention does not consistently articulate protections as enforceable rights matched by clear state obligations. Several important matters are framed as objectives or principles rather than legal entitlements. It fails to establish a sufficiently strong anti-discrimination framework, even though gender-based discrimination and structural inequality are among the root causes of violence. Critical realities facing African women and girls - female genital mutilation, child marriage, domestic violence, marital rape, trafficking and conflict-related sexual violence - are not adequately addressed. Emerging forms of violence such as femicide and cyber violence are mentioned, yet the definitions and corresponding obligations remain insufficient.
Language concerning the “family” and “African values” also requires careful scrutiny. Without legal clarity, such phrasing can be mobilised by anti-rights actors to justify practices that restrict women’s autonomy or expose women and girls to violence. The Maputo Protocol already provides strong and explicit protections in several of these areas. A new treaty, the campaign argues, must build upon that foundation. It must not weaken, confuse or retreat from standards African women have fought hard to establish.
Third are questions of implementation, monitoring and accountability. A treaty must clearly identify what governments are required to do, how compliance will be assessed, and what remedies are available when states fail. Good intentions and aspirational language are not enough. Arguments that weaknesses can be corrected after ratification through general comments, guidelines or litigation are unconvincing, Mai Aman of ISLA said. Soft-law guidance cannot repair defects in a binding treaty. Litigation is expensive, slow and inaccessible to many survivors. Amending a treaty after ratification is politically and procedurally difficult. The safest and most responsible course is to correct the text before states become legally bound by it.
4 concrete asks of #PauseForPurpose campaign
Therefore, at the Pan-African Parliament dialogue, the campaign and allied organisations advanced four concrete requests.
First, the Parliament must ensure balance in the voices addressing parliamentarians and member states. If those advocating immediate ratification are given high-level platforms, then the women’s movement, survivors and legal experts calling for a pause must receive an equal and meaningful opportunity to be heard.
Second, the Parliament should transmit the Pause for Purpose memorandum - already submitted and received by the legal counsel and the chairperson of the justice and human rights committee - to African Union (AU) member states, the African Union Commission, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the AU Special Envoy on Women, Peace and Security and other relevant bodies.
Third, member states should pause further ratification and allow time for an independent, transparent and technically rigorous expert review.
Fourth, the African Union should initiate an inclusive revision process to align the convention with the Maputo Protocol and with international standards to which AU member states are already bound, producing a treaty that reflects the lived realities of African women and girls.
This is not a call to delay without purpose. It is a call for due diligence, accountability and stronger protections. African women, the campaign insists, deserve more than a symbolic treaty. They deserve a convention that clearly names the violence they experience, creates enforceable obligations, provides effective accountability mechanisms and strengthens the legal protections already secured, said Mai.
The stakes are high. Gender-based violence remains one of the most pervasive human rights violations on the continent, intersecting with poverty, conflict, discriminatory customary practices and weak institutional responses. Survivors need laws that work in practice - laws that courts can enforce, that governments must report against, and that deliver real remedies rather than rhetorical commitments. Treaties that paper over gaps or introduce ambiguous language, risk becoming tools of regression rather than progress, particularly when anti-rights actors seize on vague references to culture or 'family' to constrain women’s autonomy.
Mai Aman’s message, and that of the broader Pause for Purpose coalition, remains consistent: African women are speaking. Parliament and member states must listen. The demand is not to abandon continental action, but to ensure that action is grounded in the hard-won standards of the Maputo Protocol, informed by the experiences of those it claims to protect, and crafted with the legal precision that binding instruments require.
“We pause today, we protect tomorrow,” the campaign declares. Pause, listen, strengthen, then ratify. Only then, it argues, will Africa have a convention capable of achieving its stated objectives - and worthy of the women and girls it is meant to serve.
This is not a call to delay without purpose. It is a call for due diligence, accountability and stronger protections. African women, the campaign insists, deserve more than a symbolic treaty. They deserve a convention that clearly names the violence they experience, creates enforceable obligations, provides effective accountability mechanisms and strengthens the legal protections already secured, said Mai.
The stakes are high. Gender-based violence remains one of the most pervasive human rights violations on the continent, intersecting with poverty, conflict, discriminatory customary practices and weak institutional responses. Survivors need laws that work in practice - laws that courts can enforce, that governments must report against, and that deliver real remedies rather than rhetorical commitments. Treaties that paper over gaps or introduce ambiguous language, risk becoming tools of regression rather than progress, particularly when anti-rights actors seize on vague references to culture or 'family' to constrain women’s autonomy.
Mai Aman’s message, and that of the broader Pause for Purpose coalition, remains consistent: African women are speaking. Parliament and member states must listen. The demand is not to abandon continental action, but to ensure that action is grounded in the hard-won standards of the Maputo Protocol, informed by the experiences of those it claims to protect, and crafted with the legal precision that binding instruments require.
“We pause today, we protect tomorrow,” the campaign declares. Pause, listen, strengthen, then ratify. Only then, it argues, will Africa have a convention capable of achieving its stated objectives - and worthy of the women and girls it is meant to serve.
published in:
