scholarly journals Challenges Surrounding the Adjudication of Women's Rights in Relation to Customary Law and Practices in Tanzania

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Norah Hashim Msuya
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
African Countries ◽  
National Human ◽  
Harmful Traditional Practices

Women's rights litigation has produced varied outcomes in many African countries. Although courts have looked at the legislation that discriminates against women with different degrees of success, matters such as tradition and culture continue to be unpredictable when subject to lawsuit. In Tanzania, the judiciary has gradually begun to recognise that discrimination on a prescribed ground cannot be justified. However, this principle has not blocked some judges from maintaining that gender discrimination based on customary rules can still be justified, despite the existence of internal, regional and national human rights law, which prohibits it. It is contended that the judiciary has a significant role to play in ensuring that customary law and harmful traditional practices are reformed and advanced to comply with human rights legislation and ensure equality between men and women in Tanzania.     

Violation of Women’s Rights by Harmful Traditional Practices

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Newman Wadesango ◽  
Symphorosa Rembe ◽  
Owence Chabaya
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
Harmful Traditional Practices

scholarly journals The Illusion of Progress: Evaluating U.N. Women’s Rights Instruments

Perceptions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Christina Borst
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Cultural Patterns ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
Cultural Mores ◽  
The United Nations

Though the realm of international women’s rights has overcome significant challenges, scope is often restricted to gender discrimination violations that are de jure rather than de facto in nature. These advancements concerning the rights of women can, to an extent, be attributed to the proactiveness of the United Nations. This paper seeks to identify the instruments the U.N. has developed for the protection of the human rights of women and address their subsequent effectiveness. By examining developed instruments, cultural patterns, and historical examples, the U.N. has and continues to make a concerted effort toward ensuring de jure protections. Enforced by analysis of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, discrepancies between what the U.N. classifies as human rights and the human rights of women become apparent. Still, the de facto discrimination against women in states with contrasting governmental structures and cultural mores is not customarily accounted for by the United Nations. Questions remain in regards to whether or not the U.N. can or should be responsible for remedying the global variance in de facto discrimination against women. It is suggested that the United Nations shift its focus toward strict instrument enforcement.

Women’s Rights, Gender and Climate Change Law in Africa: Advancing an Equity Agenda

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Addaney ◽  
Chantelle Gloria Moyo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Climate Change Responses ◽  
Human Rights Based Approach ◽  
Analytical Approaches

The consequences of climate change are not only disproportionately felt by the most vulnerable and poorest populations, there are also disparities along gender lines. The connections between climate change, gender equality and women’s rights are not only complicated but also multidimensional. In contrast, most existing studies on gender and climate change action offer a narrow conception of what gender equality and women’s rights mean in the context of climate change action. Considering these thorny linkages between climate change, gender equality and women’s rights in Africa, this article examines the intersection between gender equality, women’s rights and climate change action by focusing on African Union law and the climate change legislative and policy responses from Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The article adopts a doctrinal method and two analytical approaches – the human rights-based approach and insights from feminist approach to law – to argue that since human-rights law places the protection and fulfilment of fundamental human rights and group interests at its core, its legal threshold demands that all actions which can have an impact on human rights, including climate change responses, are bound by its rules. The article argues that gender equality and women’s rights are guaranteed in international and regional law in Africa and therefore provide a legal basis for the integration of gender equality and the protection of women’s rights in national climate change action. 

Advocating Positive Traditional Culture to Eradicate Harmful Aspects of Traditional Culture for Gender Equality in Africa

Obiter ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-62
Author(s):  
Norah Hashim Msuya
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Traditional Culture ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
African Culture ◽  
African Countries ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
Harmful Traditional Practices

The struggle for equality for all and the abolition of discriminatory, harmful cultural practices affecting women has been occurring in the world for some time now. Most African countries outlaw harmful, discriminatory traditional practices, although they persist, causing the violation of domestic and international human rights laws. Outside efforts to eliminate these practices are often met with suspicion or hostility from communities, because Africans generally believe that these are their valuable, traditional practices. The aim of this article is to discuss alleviating harmful traditional practices suppressing gender equality in Africa by practically supplementing the law. The study examines African culture versus gender equality historically to pinpoint colonialism’s influence in current gender equality. Colonial administration influenced lives politically, economically and socially, including culture and traditions. Efforts to eradicate harmful traditional practices are most effective when originating from within the culture, as focussing on international human rights is often perceived as culturally imperialistic in African countries.

Women's Movements and Constitution Making after Civil Unrest and Conflict in Africa: The Cases of Kenya and Somalia

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
pp. 78-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aili Mari Tripp
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Conflict In Africa ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Constitutional Changes

As numerous conflicts have come to an end in Africa over the past two decades, women's movements have sought to advance a women's rights agenda through peace accords; through constitutional, legislative, and electoral reforms; as well as through the introduction of gender quotas. This article focuses the impact women's movements have had in shaping constitutions after periods of turmoil, particularly in areas of equality, customary law, antidiscrimination, violence against women, quotas, and citizenship rights. It demonstrates how countries that have come out of major civil conflict and violent upheaval in Africa after the mid-1990s—but especially after 2000—have made more constitutional changes with respect to women's rights than other African countries. The second part of the article provides two examples of how women's movements influenced constitutional changes pertaining to gender equality as well as the difficulties they encountered, particularly with respect to the international community.

Sexual Exploitation of Cult Women: The Challenges of Problematizing Harmful Traditional Practices in Africa from a Doctrinalist Approach

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Omeje
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
African History ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Community Activists ◽  
Critical Problems ◽  
Harmful Traditional Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis

Harmful traditional practices are probably the most severe menace to women's rights and the optimum realization of their development potential in contemporary African history. Over time, and in recent years in particular, community activists, women's rights campaigners, church missionaries and the state have tended increasingly to confront the problem of harmful traditional practices from a doctrinalist paradigm, which mainly emphasizes the prohibition and/or obliteration of the practices. This article highlights some of the critical problems and challenges triggered by the doctrinalist approach using an ethnographic analysis of the tradition of sexual exploitation of cult women among the Bangu. It concludes by making a case for a multitrack sociological approach and solution to the problem.

Do Equality and Non-discrimination Apply to Polygamous African Customary Marriages? A Constitutional and Statutory Analysis of 14 African Commonwealth States

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-116
Author(s):  
Sonya Cotton
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
State Action ◽  
Pluralistic Societies ◽  
Marriage Laws ◽  
Statutory Regulation

Scholarship on ‘radical decoupling’ and ‘sham constitutionalism’ suggests that constitutional promises do not necessarily translate to state action. African states, dually concerned with affirming African Customary Law (acl) and international standards of human rights, face particular legislative challenges in this regard. This article examines 14 Commonwealth African states’ statutory regulation of polygamy, which epitomizes that apparent dilemma. Using simple indices to code levels of protection, it argues for disjuncture between constitutional and legislative levels of protection of women’s rights in polygamous customary marriages. This calls into question the supremacy of constitutions as a catalyst for social reform and the need for revision to African marriage laws on the basis of equality, cognisant of the position of women in legally pluralistic societies.

Human Rights Universalism in Practice: What the Iranian Women’s Rights Movement Can Teach Us

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-479
Author(s):  
Nicole Nickerson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights Movement ◽  
International Human

Abstract Does practice demonstrate the legitimacy of international human rights law? This article explores this question via a case study of the women’s rights movement in Iran. Current human rights sceptics question the system’s legitimacy because of a lack of universality and an excessive top-down approach. However, the Islamic Republic of Iran has a remarkable community of grassroots activists. The bottom-up women’s rights initiative of the One Million Signatures Campaign utilised human rights discourse in combination with local, indigenous values in pursuit of gender equality. The article argues—via the case study of this movement—that there is practical evidence to support a theory of human rights universalism, as positive human rights law empowers the existing subjectivity of individuals. The universal legitimacy of international human rights law does not primarily come from a global network dictating common values, but from members of civil society mobilising their status as rights holders.

International Obstacles to Russian Gender Discrimination Cases at the European Court of Human Rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 135-174
Author(s):  
Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom ◽  
Valerie Sperling ◽  
Melike Sayoglu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
Case Record ◽  
The Past ◽  
European Court ◽  
Very High

Chapter 5 takes up the international obstacles to successful gender discrimination claims at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), both across the Council of Europe, and from Russia specifically. The reluctance of the Court until recently to find violations of Article 14 alongside violations of other articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the limited set of circumstances in which discrimination falls under the Convention’s jurisdiction, and the very high bar of evidence required to prove discrimination, all play a large part in explaining the Court’s miniscule case record on gender discrimination. Yet we also document how the Court has become more open in the past several years to finding sex-based discrimination violations, in part due to the diffusion of successful logics of argument among women’s rights lawyers, as well as the emergence of standards in other international women’s rights conventions that the ECtHR has begun to acknowledge, such as the Convention on Eliminating All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The chapter discusses a variety of landmark cases at the ECtHR in this area, such as Opuz v. Turkey and Konstantin Markin v. Russia.

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