In February 2025 the African Union adopted a new treaty to end violence against women and girls. More than a year later it has yet to enter into force. RFLD’s report Online violence against women in West and Central Africa 2026 identifies its ratification as a clear advocacy priority for the region.
A new continental treaty
The African Union Convention on Ending Violence against Women and Girls (AU-CEVAWG) was adopted in February 2025 at the 38th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights welcomed its adoption in a statement on 17 February 2025.
The Convention complements the Maputo Protocol. It is a dedicated instrument on violence, and it places obligations on states to prevent violence and to protect survivors.
Where ratification stands
The Convention needs 15 ratifications to enter into force. Progress has been slow:
- by 25 November 2025, seven states had signed: Angola, Burundi, Djibouti, the DRC, Ghana, Liberia and The Gambia;
- by 6 May 2026, Equatorial Guinea had also signed, bringing the total to eight;
- no ratifications had been reported by May 2026;
- in West and Central Africa, the signatories are the DRC, Ghana, Liberia, The Gambia and Equatorial Guinea.
No francophone West African state had signed as of May 2026. The report describes this as a clear advocacy entry point for RFLD and its members.
How the Convention treats digital violence
The AU’s own presentation of the Convention refers to cyberbullying and harassment in digital spaces. The Strategic Roadmap launched on 6 May 2026 lists technology-facilitated abuse among the forms of harm covered.
ARTICLE 19 offered a more critical reading in December 2025. It noted that the Convention “recognises the importance of protecting women in ‘cyberspace'”, but treats it as one setting among many. It also observed that the Convention places accountability on states, with no obligations on platforms.
This concern matters because technology companies operate across borders, and the main African soft-law source on their transparency remains Principle 39 of the African Commission’s 2019 Declaration on Freedom of Expression.
The Strategic Roadmap
The AU launched a Strategic Roadmap for the Convention on 6 May 2026. It rests on four pillars:
- prevention;
- protection;
- prosecution;
- policy implementation and financing.
The roadmap gives states a framework for turning the Convention into national action. It also gives civil society a reference against which to measure progress.
Why ratification matters for online violence
The region’s national laws leave large gaps. Among the countries reviewed in the report, only three explicitly criminalise sharing intimate images without consent. Few states publish data on online violence by sex.
The scale of the need is clear. In the 2019 Internet Sans Frontières survey across 18 countries of West and Central Africa, 45.5% of women on social media had experienced online gender-based violence, and only 15% had reported it. The Convention is an opportunity for states that have not yet adopted dedicated laws.
A ratified Convention would create new obligations to prevent violence and to protect survivors, including in digital settings. It would also give civil society a binding text to cite when holding states to account.
What the report recommends
The report asks states of West and Central Africa to sign and ratify the AU Convention on Ending Violence against Women and Girls, and to ratify the Malabo Convention on cyber security and personal data protection.
It asks the African Union and the regional economic communities to promote ratification of the Convention, and to include technology-facilitated violence in its monitoring framework. Monitoring that ignores the online dimension would miss part of the violence women face.
What civil society can do
Women’s organisations can make the case for signature and ratification with their governments and parliaments, particularly in francophone West Africa. They can also use the Convention, once ratified, in shadow reports and in national advocacy.
RFLD follows ratification across the region. For the legal context in each country, see RFLD’s women’s rights laws pages, and for the report’s full recommendations, read the summary.
About the report
This article draws on RFLD’s report Online violence against women in West and Central Africa 2026, published on 4 October 2026. Read the summary, download the English edition or the French edition.
