The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World by Goldberg Michelle

Author:Goldberg, Michelle [Goldberg, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2009-02-20T05:00:00+00:00

In July 2003 the heads of government of the African Union countries approved one of the world’s most progressive treaties on women’s rights, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, often referred to as the Maputo Protocol, after the city in Mozambique where it was negotiated. Though little noticed in the United States (or among the vast majority of African women), the Maputo Protocol was a major achievement for African feminists, who were the driving force behind it. It essentially amended the African Charter, a human rights treaty that because of its stress on protecting traditional cultures had sometimes been interpreted to condone customary and religious laws that discriminate against women. According to the African Charter, “The promotion and protection of morals and traditional values recognized by the community shall be the duty of the State,” which arguably could be read as a defense of practices like female circumcision.37

In contrast, the Maputo Protocol puts the individual rights of women first. It obliges states to “ensure that the right to health of women, including sexual and reproductive health, is respected and promoted,” and it requires the prohibition, “through legislative measures backed by sanctions, of all forms of female genital mutilation.” Child marriage and forced marriage must also be outlawed. And the protocol called for governments to legalize abortion in cases of rape, incest, and threats to the life and health of the mother, making it the first international treaty that affirms abortion rights.

The protocol went into effect in 2005, after Togo became the fifteenth country to ratify it. “On FGM, it’s as progressive as one can get. It condemns the practice. It is not ambiguous,” said Charles Ngwena, a constitutional law professor at the University of the Free State in South Africa. “The expectation is that states are going to do everything that they should do in order to eradicate the practice.” Officially, at least, female circumcision is now recognized as a human rights violation at the highest level of African law, even as it remains a cherished rite among many African people.

Gambia, which had initially registered reservations to the protocol, ratified it fully in April 2006. “Now that we know the serious consequences of our practice, it would amount not only to sheer folly and indifference to refuse to change, it may also amount to a high degree of callousness to allow adults to continue to inflict on helpless innocent babies and children such dreadful pains instead of the love, affection, and protection they ask for,” Gambia’s secretary of state argued at the National Assembly. “The cultural beliefs of the past may not be good anymore, because we now know that they are not too good for our health and well-being.”38

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