Afrofeminist Civil Society & Human Rights Implementation in Africa.

An afrofeminist invitation.

The Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement (RFLD), through its Africa Regional Office in Accra, Ghana, opens a continental Call for Articles on the role of afrofeminist civil society in the implementation of African human rights. We are soliciting and looking for a wide range of submissions, and trying to engage a wider community of activists, academics, journalists, and those working across Africa.

This thematic issue is unambiguously afrofeminist. It is grounded in African intellectual genealogies that refuse the framing of women’s rights as a Western imposition, and that recover the long political history of women organising on the continent — from the Agoojie of the Dahomean royal guard to the Aba Women’s War of 1929, from the Lomé market women of 1933 to the Grand-Bassam marchers of 1949, from Aline Sitoé Diatta and Aoua Kéita to Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, and to the contemporary lineages opened by Awa Thiam, Oyèrónké Oyëwùmí, Patricia McFadden, Rama Salla Dieng, Sylvia Tamale, Hawa Ba and Léonora Miano.

Afrofeminism, as we practise it, is at once analytical and operational. It insists that gender cannot be thought outside of race, class, age, disability, sexuality, language, religion, geography and displacement. Capacity building, sensitization and agenda processing must be reciprocal, never extractive.

What we are looking for.

Through this issue, RFLD seeks to consolidate the role of feminist civil society in facilitating the transition from human rights standards to human rights practice across Africa. Articles should:

• Centre African feminist epistemologies — including anglophone, francophone, lusophone, arabophone and indigenous-language epistemologies — in continental human rights debates.
• Strengthen the ability of feminist CSOs to use AU, ACHPR and sub-regional mechanisms for the protection of women’s rights.
• Raise citizen awareness, especially among young African women and gender-diverse organisers, of AU human rights mechanisms.
• Document practitioner, academic and activist reflections that propose operational and policy options, not only diagnoses.
• Propose afrofeminist responses to displacement, conflict, climate disruption and shrinking civic space.

Who can contribute.

RFLD welcomes contributions from a wide range of voices across the continent:

• Feminist activists, community organisers and grassroots leaders;
• Academics, researchers and graduate students from African institutions, the diaspora, or partner universities;
• Women Human Rights Defenders, queer and trans organisers, disability-led feminist actors;
• Legal practitioners, judges, paralegals and policy analysts engaged in feminist litigation;
• Journalists, podcasters, photographers and afrofeminist communicators;
• Practitioners working with AU mechanisms, sub-regional bodies and national human rights institutions;
• Member organisations of the RFLD network, including grassroots collectives without formal registration.

How to submit.

Editorial calendar.

Sororité sans frontières.

Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement · ACHPR Observer N°553 · NGOsource 501(c)(3) Equivalent · rflgd.org