Observer Status Number : 553 – Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement (RFLD)
October 24, 2025
Banjul, The Gambia
Honorable Chairperson and Distinguished Commissioners of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights,
Honorable State Party Delegates,
All protocols observed.
The Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement (RFLD) extends heartfelt congratulations to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the convening of this historic 85th Ordinary Session, themed “The Year of Reparations: Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations.” We are deeply honored to present this statement at a moment when our continent confronts both the shadows of historical injustice and the urgent realities of contemporary human rights violations.
As a woman-led organization operating across Subsaharan Africa, RFLD has witnessed unprecedented challenges facing women human rights defenders and civil society over the past year.
Our Regional Data Center called Donuese has documented that 58% of African women parliamentarians now face online attacks, transforming digital space from a platform of empowerment into a gendered battlefield where activism comes at a devastating personal cost.
Seventy-three percent of women human rights defenders receive direct threats via digital platforms. 89% of deepfake survivors are women who have stood against injustice, revealing how artificial intelligence technology is being deliberately weaponized to terrorize women advocates.
The Sexual and Gender-Based Violence statistics reveal catastrophic realities across Sub-Saharan Africa that demand immediate reparative action. One in three women continue to experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, yet 89% of SGBV cases are never reported to authorities—a silence born of systemic failures in justice systems that have perpetuated impunity for centuries.
Trafficking of women and girls has increased by 35% between 2020-2024, with 68% of female trafficking victims under 25 years old. This represents not merely a criminal justice failure but a continuation of historical patterns of exploitation that reparations frameworks must address.
The economic impact of this violence costs African economies $12.9 billion annually in lost productivity, while women’s economic participation drops by 23% in high-violence regions.
While celebrating that 46 out of 55 African Union states have ratified the Maputo Protocol as of August 2025, we must confront the stark implementation failures that render legal progress meaningless for millions of women. Only 23% of ratifying states have fully domesticated the Protocol into national law, while 67% of cases brought under the Protocol face procedural delays exceeding two years. Disinformation campaigns against women leaders increase 400% during election periods, while 67% of fact-checks related to gender issues face disputes by state actors seeking to control narratives about women’s rights.
Social media algorithms amplify anti-women content by 230% compared to neutral content, creating digital environments hostile to women’s participation. Women journalists face three times more online harassment than male colleagues, systematically excluding women’s voices from public discourse and democratic debate.
Honorable Commissioners, as we engage with this year’s reparations theme, we must ensure that historical redress addresses the specific ways that slavery, colonialism, and systematic racism have impacted women and marginalized communities. Reparations cannot be meaningful if they fail to address how historical injustices created contemporary vulnerabilities that make women targets for digital violence, economic exclusion, and systematic silencing.
We respectfully call upon this distinguished Commission to:
First, conduct urgent country missions to document the escalating crisis facing women human rights defenders.
second, ensure the operationalization of protection mechanisms specifically addressing the intersection of historical injustice and contemporary violence against women, ensuring that reparations frameworks strengthen rather than ignore women’s current vulnerabilities.
The Africa we want cannot be built on the continued silencing of women’s voices. True reparations must transform not only how we address historical injustices but how we protect contemporary advocates working to prevent their repetition.
Thank you very much, Honorable Chairperson.
