November 10-12, 2025 l Location: Dakar, Senegal
Implemented by: Women Leaders Network for Development (RFLD)
Funded by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Supported by: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
Executive Summary
This consultation represents a transformative moment in the African human rights landscape, centering feminist approaches to protection and empowerment of human rights defenders across Sub-Saharan Africa. The Women Leaders Network for Development (RFLD), as an African-rooted feminist hub, facilitates this critical dialogue between civil society organizations, state actors, media representatives, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders.
The consultation adopts an intersectional feminist lens that recognizes how multiple forms of oppression affect women human rights defenders differently based on their identities, contexts, and vulnerabilities. This approach moves beyond traditional protection mechanisms to address systemic inequalities and power structures that perpetuate violations against defenders, particularly women, youth, refugees, internally displaced persons, and other marginalized groups.
Through decolonial methodology and participatory engagement, this consultation aims to strengthen the African human rights system by centering African feminist perspectives, experiences, and solutions. The event will foster solidarity networks, develop context-specific protection strategies, and advocate for transformative policies that address root causes of violations rather than merely responding to symptoms.
Context
The African human rights system has evolved significantly since the adoption of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 1986. However, the persistent gap between human rights standards and implementation reveals the limitations of traditional approaches that often fail to address intersectional vulnerabilities and systemic oppression faced by marginalized communities, particularly women and youth.
Women human rights defenders in Sub-Saharan Africa face unique challenges that stem from the intersection of gender-based discrimination, patriarchal social structures, and repressive political environments. These defenders often experience gender-specific forms of violence, including sexual harassment, intimate partner violence used as retaliation, and attacks on their families and children. The criminalization of women’s rights issues, restrictions on reproductive rights advocacy, and the delegitimization of feminist movements further compound these challenges.
The shrinking civic space across the continent has disproportionately affected women-led organizations and feminist movements. Restrictive laws on civil society operations, limitations on funding for gender equality initiatives, and the co-optation of women’s rights discourse by conservative agendas have created additional barriers for women defenders. Despite these challenges, African feminist movements have demonstrated remarkable resilience, innovation, and solidarity in advancing human rights and democratic governance.
Climate change, conflict, and economic inequality have intensified the vulnerabilities of marginalized communities, creating new forms of displacement and dispossession that require feminist analysis and response. Women and girls bear disproportionate impacts of these crises while being excluded from decision-making processes that affect their lives and communities.
RFLD Organization Profile
The Women Leaders Network for Development (RFLD) is a transformative African feminist hub that has been at the forefront of advancing gender justice, human rights, and civic space protection across Sub-Saharan Africa for over a decade. Registered in Benin, Ghana, Gambia, Togo, and South Africa, RFLD operates as a continental network comprising over sixty feminist member organizations and seven hundred and seventy-three individual members.
Vision and Mission
RFLD envisions a Sub-Saharan Africa where women and youth live in safety, dignity, and freedom, fully empowered to participate in and lead development processes that create lasting social transformation. Our mission centers on being an Africa-rooted global hub for women and youth organizing and activism, strategically empowering communities and advancing gender justice, human rights, and civic spaces through evidence-based advocacy and capacity building.
Feminist Approach
RFLD’s work is grounded in intersectional feminism that recognizes the interconnected nature of oppression and the need for holistic approaches to justice. Our methodology centers the expertise and experiences of women and marginalized communities as the foundation for sustainable change. We employ radical imagination to envision and build futures free from gender-based oppression while celebrating the power of diversity across Francophone, Lusophone, and Anglophone Africa.
Strategic Areas
RFLD’s transformative work spans multiple interconnected areas including economic justice, ending harmful practices, sexual and reproductive health and rights, climate justice, human rights protection, and peace and security. This comprehensive approach recognizes that gender equality cannot be achieved through isolated interventions but requires systematic transformation of structures, policies, and social norms.
African Union Engagement
RFLD holds observer status with the African Union and serves on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Working Group of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders. This positioning enables RFLD to influence continental human rights mechanisms while ensuring that feminist perspectives are integrated into policy development and implementation processes.
Participants Profile
The consultation brings together a carefully selected group of participants representing diverse constituencies and perspectives within the African human rights ecosystem. The selection process prioritized intersectional representation, ensuring inclusion of voices that are often marginalized in traditional human rights spaces.
Civil Society Organizations
Participating civil society organizations include women-led feminist organizations, youth movements, disability rights organizations, and coalitions working on intersectional human rights issues. Priority has been given to grassroots organizations that work directly with marginalized communities and have demonstrated innovative approaches to human rights protection and advocacy.
State Actors
Government representatives include officials from national human rights institutions, gender ministries, justice departments, and parliamentary committees on human rights and gender equality. The selection ensures representation from different regions and legal systems across Sub-Saharan Africa, with emphasis on including progressive voices who have championed human rights reforms.
Media Representatives
Media participants comprise journalists, editors, and media activists who specialize in human rights reporting, particularly those who have demonstrated commitment to gender-sensitive journalism and protection of media freedom. Independent media practitioners, community radio representatives, and digital media activists are included to ensure diverse media perspectives.
Intersectional Representation
The participant selection deliberately centers voices of women human rights defenders from marginalized communities, including refugees, internally displaced persons, women with disabilities, indigenous women, and young women leaders. This approach ensures that the consultation addresses the full spectrum of vulnerabilities and experiences within the human rights defender community.
Primary Objective
To strengthen protection mechanisms for human rights defenders through feminist, intersectional approaches that address root causes of violations and empower marginalized communities to claim their rights and participate meaningfully in decision-making processes.
Specific Objectives
1. Enhance Understanding of Intersectional Vulnerabilities: Develop
comprehensive analysis of how gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, and other identity markers intersect to create specific vulnerabilities for human rights defenders.
- Strengthen Protection Strategies: Design context-specific protection mechanisms that address both immediate security needs and long-term systemic changes required for sustainable protection of defenders.
- Build Solidarity Networks: Foster connections and mutual support systems among diverse constituencies working on human rights, creating platforms for ongoing collaboration and resource sharing.
- Influence Policy Development: Generate concrete recommendations for improving legal frameworks, policies, and practices at national, regional, and continental levels to better protect human rights defenders.
- Strengthen Advocacy Capacity: Enhance participants’ skills in strategic advocacy, documentation, and engagement with regional human rights mechanisms, particularly the African human rights system.
- Promote Decolonial Approaches: Center African feminist perspectives and
indigenous knowledge systems in human rights protection, moving beyond Western-centric approaches to embrace contextually relevant solutions.
Expected Results
Immediate Results
- Enhanced knowledge and understanding among participants of intersectional approaches to human rights protection
- Strengthened networks and solidarity among diverse human rights constituencies
- Concrete action plans developed by participants for improving protection mechanisms in their contexts
- Increased capacity for strategic engagement with African human rights mechanisms
Short-term Results (6-12 months)
- Implementation of improved protection strategies by participating organizations
- Enhanced collaboration between civil society, state actors, and media on human rights protection
- Increased visibility and documentation of violations against marginalized human rights defenders
- Advocacy campaigns launched based on consultation recommendations
Medium-term Results (1-3 years)
- Policy reforms at national and regional levels that better protect human rights defenders
- Institutionalization of intersectional approaches within human rights protection mechanisms
- Sustained reduction in violations against women and marginalized human rights defenders
- Strengthened African human rights system with enhanced civil society participation
Transformative Impact
The consultation aims to contribute to fundamental shifts in how human rights protection is conceptualized and implemented across Sub-Saharan Africa. By centering feminist and intersectional approaches, the expected long-term impact includes more inclusive, effective, and sustainable human rights systems that address root causes of oppression rather than merely responding to violations after they occur.
Methodology
The consultation employs a participatory, decolonial feminist methodology that centers the experiences and expertise of participants while creating safe spaces for dialogue, learning, and action planning. The approach recognizes that meaningful protection of human rights defenders requires transforming power dynamics and addressing systemic inequalities.
Participatory Engagement
Sessions will be designed to maximize participant engagement through interactive dialogues, small group discussions, case study analysis, and collaborative problem-solving exercises. The methodology ensures that all voices are heard, with particular attention to creating space for marginalized perspectives that might otherwise be overshadowed.
Intersectional Analysis
All sessions will employ intersectional analysis frameworks that examine how multiple forms of identity and oppression interact to create unique experiences for different groups of human rights defenders. This approach moves beyond universal solutions to develop nuanced strategies that address specific vulnerabilities and leverage particular strengths.
Experience Sharing and Peer Learning
The methodology prioritizes horizontal learning among participants, recognizing that those working at the grassroots level often have innovative solutions and insights that can benefit the broader human rights community. Structured storytelling sessions, case presentations, and solution-sharing forums will facilitate this peer-to-peer learning.
Action-Oriented Outcomes
Rather than limiting the consultation to discussion and analysis, the methodology ensures that each session produces concrete outcomes, including action plans, advocacy strategies, network-building initiatives, and follow-up commitments that participants can implement in their contexts.
Special Rapporteur’s Mandate
The Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights was established through Resolution 69 adopted during the 35th Ordinary Session in Banjul, Gambia, in 2004. This mandate represents a crucial mechanism within the African human rights system for addressing the specific challenges faced by those who defend human rights across the continent.
Mandate Functions
The Special Rapporteur’s mandate encompasses monitoring and documentation of violations against human rights defenders, institutional cooperation and dialogue with member states and civil society, development of protection strategies and recommendations, and promotion of international standards for defender protection across Africa.
Feminist Perspective on the Mandate
From a feminist perspective, the Special Rapporteur’s mandate presents both opportunities and challenges. While the mechanism provides important avenues for addressing violations against defenders, feminist analysis reveals the need for more explicit attention to gender-specific vulnerabilities and intersectional discrimination faced by women and marginalized defenders. The consultation will explore how the mandate can be strengthened to better address the unique challenges faced by women human rights defenders, including gender-based violence, attacks on family members, and the delegitimization of women’s rights work. Discussions will focus on how the Special Rapporteur can adopt more intersectional approaches that recognize the diverse experiences of defenders across different identity categories.
Enhancing Civil Society Engagement
The consultation will examine ways to strengthen civil society engagement with the Special Rapporteur’s mandate, particularly ensuring that marginalized voices have meaningful access to the mechanism. This includes addressing barriers such as language, resources, and technical capacity that may prevent grassroots organizations from effectively utilizing the mandate.
Consultation Languages
Recognizing the linguistic diversity of Sub-Saharan Africa and the importance of meaningful participation, the consultation will be conducted in both French and English, with professional interpretation services provided throughout all sessions.
Language Accessibility
All consultation materials, including background documents, presentations, and final reports, will be available in both French and English. Simultaneous interpretation will be provided during plenary sessions, while consecutive interpretation will be available for smaller group discussions as needed.
Inclusive Communication
Beyond language interpretation, the consultation will employ inclusive communication approaches that accommodate different learning styles, cultural communication norms, and accessibility needs. This includes providing materials in accessible formats and ensuring that communication styles respect diverse cultural contexts.
Documentation and Reporting
All consultation outputs, including recommendations, action plans, and final reports, will be produced in both French and English to ensure maximum accessibility and utility for participants and stakeholders across Francophone and Anglophone Africa.
Impact and Sustainability
The consultation is designed to generate lasting impact that extends far beyond the three-day event in Dakar. Sustainability mechanisms are built into the design to ensure that the connections, knowledge, and commitments generated during the consultation translate into concrete improvements in the protection and empowerment of human rights defenders across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Network Sustainability
RFLD will maintain and strengthen the networks established during the consultation through regular virtual convenings, collaborative projects, resource sharing platforms, and joint advocacy initiatives. These ongoing connections ensure that the solidarity and mutual support fostered during the consultation continue to grow and evolve.
Knowledge Management
The consultation will produce comprehensive documentation including best practices, case studies, advocacy tools, and policy recommendations that will be made freely available to the broader human rights community. This knowledge repository will serve as a resource for organizations and individuals working to protect and empower human rights defenders.
Follow-up Actions
Participants will develop concrete follow-up actions and commitments that they will implement in their respective contexts. RFLD will provide ongoing support and monitoring to help ensure the implementation of these actions, creating accountability mechanisms that transform consultation outcomes into real-world impact.
Policy Influence
The consultation recommendations will be strategically disseminated to key policy-making bodies at national, regional, and continental levels. RFLD will engage in sustained advocacy to ensure that the insights and recommendations from the consultation influence policy development and implementation processes.
Movement Building
Ultimately, the consultation contributes to broader feminist movement building across Sub-Saharan Africa by strengthening connections among diverse organizations, developing shared analysis and strategies, and building collective power for transformative change. This movement-building approach ensures that the impact extends beyond immediate protection concerns to address systemic inequalities and power structures that perpetuate violations against human rights defenders.
Conclusion
This consultation represents a pivotal moment in the evolution of human rights protection in Sub-Saharan Africa. By centering feminist, intersectional approaches and prioritizing the voices and experiences of marginalized communities, the event will contribute to more effective, inclusive, and sustainable mechanisms for protecting and empowering human rights defenders.
The collaboration between RFLD, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and GIZ demonstrates the potential for meaningful partnerships that support African-led solutions to human rights challenges. The consultation outcomes will contribute to strengthening the African human rights system while building the capacity and resilience of civil society organizations, state actors, and media representatives committed to advancing human rights and democratic governance.
Through this transformative engagement, participants will leave Dakar with enhanced knowledge, strengthened networks, concrete action plans, and renewed commitment to protecting and empowering human rights defenders across the continent. The ripple effects of this consultation will contribute to creating safer, more enabling environments
for all those who courageously defend human rights and fundamental freedoms in Sub-Saharan Africa.
