Every Woman Treaty: Time for Every Girl & Woman to Thrive safely!

Estimates by the World Health Organization (2021) reveal that one in three women are sexually abused or face various forms of violence from their partners. Incidents of violence against women and girls has increased in the wake of changes in the global landscape arising from the effects of Covid 19, climate change and political instability. Violence against women and girls has, in the same breath, taken on new forms due to abuses of technology. This has been supported by reports by Plan International (2020), UNICEF (GBV in Emergencies) and WHO (2021). which paint a grim picture. These data connote a gradual escalation to a global crisis, as forms of gender-based violence seem to cut across borders.

In Kenya, various legislation have been enacted as a safeguard against this vice, including the Sexual Offences Act of 2006, Domestic Violence 2018 and most recently the introduction of the Digital Sex Offender Registry (with data on all sex offenders, which is similarly present in Nigeria). These efforts are laudable. However they fail to effectively address and or eradicate and effectively eradicate the vice.

CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) – the legislation adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, also popularly referred to as the International bill of rights for women – was the first document for women that was universally signed and ratified by most of the nations of the world. It led to the creation of path-breaking laws and institutions to end discrimination against women when gender violence was considered a private matter.

Its General Recommendation 35 is a powerful document that speaks specifically to ending this human rights violation. Creating an instrument, potentially an Optional/Additional Protocol to CEDAW, that makes GR 35 binding would strengthen both the global and national framework on ending violence against women and girls, which is a necessary and much-needed step.

The profound impact that continual violence on girls and women have on the future of families, communities, nations and the world at large cannot be underscored. The old African adage that educating a girl is akin to educating the community; I do thus hereby add that protecting a girl and a woman against violence is similarly akin to securing a global generation.

It is against this back-drop and incumbent upon all state-parties to endorse a global treaty.

As a coalition member of Every Woman Treaty, an organization advocating for such a binding norm, I invite you to be part of this paradigm shift!

How you may ask?

In adding your support to this treaty in the link below you will be advocating for the protection of the global right of every girl and woman from every form of violence.

Join in; let us create a global environment for all girls and women to thrive!

https://everywoman.org/the-peoples-treaty/