Maputo
Barometer.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Benin positions itself as a regional leader in the institutional fight against gender-based violence. The state has built a deterrent penal arsenal: Law 2011-26 on violence against women, reinforced in December 2021 by Law 2021-11 on gender-based offences and by Law 2021-12, which expanded lawful access to abortion, one of the most significant reproductive-rights reforms on the continent.⁴ The National Women's Institute (INF), created in 2021, has been empowered to act as a civil party in GBV proceedings, and the CRIET court has seen its jurisdiction extended to gender-based crimes.⁵

On schooling, free education for girls has been extended in several municipalities, but results remain mixed in the northern departments (Alibori, Borgou), where the burden of domestic work penalises girls' retention in secondary school. Politically, the 2019 constitutional revision and Electoral Code guarantee 24 reserved seats for women in the National Assembly; the 2023 legislative elections returned 28 women of 109 seats, about 26%.⁶ A step forward, and still far short of the parity Article 9 of the Protocol demands.

Socio-political context and major challenges

Benin's main challenge lies in the striking contrast between its legal arsenal, modernist and firm, and the socio-cultural weights that persist in rural areas. Many women still hesitate to denounce their abusers out of fear of community stigmatisation or loss of financial support; economic dependence remains a major hurdle.

Specialised courts and INF branches are still perceived as too centralised and inaccessible for rural women in remote municipalities. Period poverty and the lack of appropriate sanitation facilities in public schools in the hinterland continue to fuel the dropout rate among adolescent girls.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Implementation of the Maputo Protocol in Burkina Faso is tragically hindered by one of the most severe security and humanitarian crises in the country's history. Historically, Burkina Faso had a robust legal framework: it was a continental pioneer in criminalising FGM in 1996, a prohibition reinforced by the 2018 Penal Code.⁷ On the ground, however, the GBV picture has darkened: the conflict has produced an explosion of rape, abduction, and sexual violence used as weapons of war against internally displaced women.

The education indicator is equally alarming. The closure of thousands of schools in the North, Sahel, and East regions, more than 5,000 at the height of the crisis, disproportionately affects girls.⁸ Out of school, they become extremely vulnerable to child marriage and economic exploitation. Politically, the transition authorities have struggled to meaningfully integrate women into the highest decision-making spheres, particularly in bodies linked to national security and peace restoration.

Socio-political context and major challenges

Burkina Faso counts more than two million internally displaced persons, the vast majority of them women and children.⁷ Displaced women live in double vulnerability: they have lost their agricultural livelihoods and face a severe lack of infrastructure in host areas, with an absence of safe showers, dignity kits, and reproductive-health services.

The formal judicial system has collapsed in several provinces, leaving a legal void that favours near-total impunity for perpetrators of GBV. Mass psychological trauma requires a health response that the state, focused on the war effort, cannot currently fund alone.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Cabo Verde stands out as the strongest performer in the West African region, displaying green across all three indicators. Since 2011, the country has had a comprehensive, pioneering law against gender-based violence (the Lei VBG), strictly enforced under a zero-tolerance policy and supported by a network of functional shelters.⁹ In education, Cabo Verde displays exceptional enrolment parity in primary and secondary school, with women over-represented in higher education, fully meeting Article 12.

The political indicator is equally remarkable: since the 2019 Parity Law, Cabo Verde is one of the very few African countries to approach parity in its government, National Assembly, and municipal councils.⁹

Socio-political context and major challenges

The Cabo Verdean paradox lies in its economy: despite a higher level of education than men, Cabo Verdean women continue to face higher unemployment rates and are over-represented in precarious sectors and the informal economy. Economic independence (Article 13 of the Protocol) remains the last major hurdle.

The phenomenon of fathers defaulting on child support weighs heavily on single-parent households, overwhelmingly headed by women, keeping them financially vulnerable despite state aid.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Côte d'Ivoire has made significant legislative progress in recent years, propelling its GBV indicator into the green. The 2019 Penal Code drastically stiffened penalties for domestic violence, rape (which can no longer be reclassified as a simple misdemeanour), and sexual harassment; the 2019 marriage law made spouses joint heads of the household.¹⁰ Structural investments in proximity middle schools aim to keep girls in school, yet the education indicator remains orange: child labour in rural areas linked to the cocoa economy continues to penalise thousands of young girls.

Politically, Law 2019-870 mandates a 30% quota for women on electoral lists. Enforcement is flawed: dominant parties too often absorb the financial penalty rather than yield winnable positions to women candidates.¹⁰

Socio-political context and major challenges

Ivorian society remains deeply marked by patriarchal dynamics, even in urban centres like Abidjan. Family-law reforms still encounter cultural resistance. The country's challenge is translating excellent national laws into local realities.

Access to justice for GBV survivors is hindered by procedural costs, the slowness of the judicial system, and a recurring pattern of out-of-court settlements imposed by family or neighbourhood chiefs, which bypasses the penal system and fosters recidivism.

Detailed analysis of indicators

The Gambia currently represents one of the most serious sources of concern for RFLD in West Africa. Between 2023 and 2024, the country underwent a major institutional crisis: a bill to repeal the Women's (Amendment) Act 2015, the landmark law criminalising FGM, was tabled and debated in the National Assembly. The repeal was defeated on 15 July 2024, but the mere fact that it reached a vote violates the spirit of Article 5 of the Protocol and has created a dangerously permissive climate.¹¹

Roughly 73% of Gambian women aged 15 to 49 have undergone FGM.¹¹ On education, economic barriers and early marriage keep the indicator orange for rural girls. Politically, women hold under 10% of National Assembly seats, one of the lowest rates in the region, illustrating an institutionalised patriarchy that structurally excludes women from power.

Socio-political context and major challenges

The Gambian challenge is rooted in the manipulation of religious and traditional discourse. Influential conservative clerics run aggressive misinformation campaigns falsely associating excision with an Islamic religious obligation, despite denials from international theological authorities. This lobbying places immense pressure on male MPs, threatening their voter bases if they support women's rights.

Impunity has become the norm: despite the 2015 law, prosecutions against excisers remain extremely rare for lack of political and police will, making the law practically inoperative in villages.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Ghana presents a contrasting but overall encouraging profile. The GBV indicator is orange: the Domestic Violence Act has provided a solid framework since 2007, but access to justice is severely hindered. The cost of police medical report forms, which rape survivors must pay out of pocket to prove an assault, constitutes an unacceptable economic barrier to Article 4.¹² Ghana excels in education (Green): the sustained Free Senior High School policy has achieved remarkable parity, offering girls unprecedented mobility.

Politically, the deadlock finally broke: the Affirmative Action (Gender Equity) Act passed in July 2024 after more than a decade of advocacy, and Ghana swore in its first woman Vice-President in January 2025.¹² The indicator remains orange because passage is not operationalisation: women still hold well under a fifth of parliamentary seats, and the Act's enforcement mechanisms are untested.

Socio-political context and major challenges

Ghana is a stable democracy with a vibrant civil society, but the political sphere is extremely monetised. The prohibitive cost of electoral campaigns automatically excludes the majority of women capable of running for local or national office.

In parts of the North, so-called witch camps persist: elderly, often widowed women are exiled there after false accusations, a grave violation of Article 22 of the Protocol on the protection of elderly women. A 2023 bill criminalising witchcraft accusations passed Parliament but has not yet received assent.¹³

Detailed analysis of indicators

The state of women's rights in Guinea is critical, plunging the GBV indicator into deep red. Despite ratifying the Maputo Protocol and adopting national laws firmly banning harmful practices, including the 2019 Children's Code, Guinea has one of the highest FGM prevalence rates in the world: 94.5% of women aged 15 to 49.¹⁴ The law is close to decorative against the crushing weight of custom.

In education (Orange), strong disparities persist: girls in Conakry access schooling while those in the Forest Region, Upper Guinea, and Middle Guinea suffer massive early dropout, often linked to arranged marriage from puberty. The political indicator is red: despite a 2019 law establishing parity on electoral lists, the transition since the 2021 coup has largely marginalised women's voices in decision-making bodies, where representation remains far below what the law promises.¹⁴

Socio-political context and major challenges

Guinea's major challenge is the widespread social acceptance of GBV. Excision is socially celebrated; a family that refuses to excise a daughter faces community ostracism. The practice has also become medicalised, with health workers performing mutilations in clandestine clinics, complicating enforcement.

Chronic political instability and the weakness of state authority outside the capital prevent enforcement of the penal law. Local police and judges, themselves drawn from these communities, often refuse to apply the texts against customary chiefs or respected excisers.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Guinea-Bissau presents mixed indicators, dragged down by chronic instability. The GBV indicator is orange: the country ratified the Protocol, banned FGM by law in 2011, and adopted a specific domestic-violence law in 2014.¹⁵ Repeated political crises, however, have prevented the deployment of state protection services such as shelters or a police force trained in survivor care.

The education system is in ruins: the dramatic lack of sanitation (separate toilets, running water) in rural schools drives significant menstrual dropout among adolescent girls. Political representation is red. The political scene, militarised and marked by electoral violence, and shaken again by the rupture of late 2025, creates an extremely hostile environment for women who wish to engage publicly, despite a 2018 parity law on the books.¹⁵

Socio-political context and major challenges

Guinea-Bissau suffers from its role as a transit hub for narco-trafficking, which has weakened the rule of law and fostered corruption. In a context of extreme poverty, economic survival takes precedence over the defence of social rights. Women are the backbone of the informal economy yet have almost no access to land ownership.

Maternal and infant mortality are among the highest in West Africa, roughly 725 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, a serious breach of Article 14 on reproductive health, as the state lacks the means to provide basic emergency obstetric care in isolated provinces.¹⁵

Detailed analysis of indicators

Liberia presents a complex profile, orange on all indicators, forged by its post-conflict history. The Domestic Violence Act of 2019 set an important milestone, though its FGM provision was removed before passage. Since 2022, the government and the National Council of Chiefs and Elders have proclaimed successive temporary suspensions of Sande initiation practices, including FGM.¹⁶ This is a step toward Article 5, but a suspension is not a penal law, hence the orange rating.

In education, fee-free policies exist, but civil society fights bitterly against the persistent scourge of sexual exploitation in schools, the practice known as sex for grades, which ruins the futures of many female students. Politically, the Liberian paradox is striking: the first African country to elect a woman President by universal suffrage still counts only around 11% women in its Legislature.¹⁶

Socio-political context and major challenges

Liberia is a deeply dual society: Monrovia, with an intellectual elite and very active NGOs, and the interior counties, where state authority yields to the power of traditional secret societies (Poro for men, Sande for women). Banning FGM in Liberia attacks the core of a coming-of-age system and the local power of the Zoes, the priestesses who administer it.

The country also carries the legacy of an overburdened judicial system in which out-of-court settlements, even in statutory rape cases, remain commonplace under family pressure.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Mali is in a state of major alert, with two red indicators. Mali ratified the Maputo Protocol in January 2005, but its domestic law neutralises much of the treaty's substance: the 2011 Persons and Family Code, adopted under fierce pressure from conservative religious lobbies after the withdrawal of a more progressive 2009 draft, maintains provisions on marriage age, spousal obedience, and inheritance that directly contradict Articles 6 and 21.¹⁷ Mali also has no statutory ban on FGM, and prevalence remains among the highest on the continent.

The schooling indicator is tragic: asymmetric warfare has forced the closure of more than 1,500 schools across the North, Centre, and increasingly the South, condemning a generation of girls to exclusion and survival marriages.¹⁷ The political indicator is the sole nuance (Orange): the 2015 quota law requiring 30% women in appointed and elected offices provides a usable legal foundation, however imperfect its application under the transition.

Socio-political context and major challenges

The Malian crisis is not only a security crisis; it is ideological. In areas outside state control, radical armed groups impose a reign of terror in which women lose freedom of movement, dress, and economic activity. Even in Bamako, the influence of religious leagues on political power is such that no feminist reform can pass without risking unrest.

Women human rights defenders work in a climate of constant intimidation and death threats. Access to maternal health care is non-existent in conflict zones, driving a tragic rise in obstetric mortality.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Mauritania scores red on all three indicators. Contrary to a widespread assumption, Mauritania did ratify the Maputo Protocol, on 21 September 2005.¹⁸ The failure is not one of ratification; it is one of translation into domestic law. The draft framework law on gender-based violence, the Karama law (meaning Dignity), already heavily watered down, has been rejected or stalled in Parliament repeatedly since 2017.¹⁸

Consequently, FGM (prevalence around two-thirds of women aged 15 to 49, penalised only narrowly for minors under the 2005 Child Protection Code), unpunished rape, and practices such as the forced force-feeding of young girls (leblouh) remain recurring scourges.¹⁸ Girls' schooling is severely limited, notably in rural and nomadic communities and among Haratine populations. Women's representation in sovereign decision-making bodies remains marginal despite list quotas.

Socio-political context and major challenges

The Mauritanian blockage relies on an ultra-rigorous interpretation of Sharia, the primary source of law under the Constitution. Detractors of the Karama law use the religious pretext to claim such texts would westernise society and destroy the Muslim family.

This institutionalised resistance sustains a profound denial of justice: survivors of sexual violence risk prosecution themselves for zina (extramarital relations) if they cannot produce impossible-to-gather testimonial evidence. Social stratification and the legacy of descent-based slavery, though officially abolished, continue to create an underclass of women with almost no effective rights.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Niger faces the most complex socio-demographic challenges in the region, compounded by a legal anomaly: Niger signed the Maputo Protocol in 2004, but its National Assembly rejected ratification in June 2006, and it remains the only non-State Party among the sixteen countries covered here.¹⁹

The GBV indicator is red on substance as well as status: Niger has the highest child-marriage prevalence in the world, with roughly three-quarters of girls married before 18 and more than a quarter before 15.¹⁹ As a direct consequence, dropout at puberty is cataclysmic, and the country's very high fertility rate traps women in cycles of poverty and health fragility, including elevated rates of obstetric fistula. The political indicator is the surprise (Orange): a quota law dating from 2000 and strengthened in 2019 requires substantial minimum shares of women in appointed and elected office, proving that a legal foothold exists even where implementation struggles.¹⁹

Socio-political context and major challenges

The Nigerien challenge is an explosive mix of extreme poverty, climate pressure (droughts push families to marry off daughters to have one less mouth to feed), and radical religious conservatism. Customary chiefs and local marabouts wield far more influence than the state in rural areas.

Every attempt to reform the Civil Code to set the marriage age at 18 has provoked an outcry, with the state backing down each time for fear of destabilisation. Armed conflict along the borders with Mali and Nigeria further exacerbates the vulnerability of displaced girls.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Nigeria, the continent's demographic giant, presents a highly heterogeneous dashboard. The major federal victories are the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act of 2015 and the Child Rights Act of 2003. Nigeria's federal structure makes enforcement chaotic: most states have now passed VAPP-type laws, but domestication remains uneven, and in several northern states governed under Sharia it is laborious or contested.²⁰

Schooling reveals the same North-South divide: parity is nearly achieved in the South, while the North counts millions of out-of-school girls, a situation worsened by the tactic of mass school kidnappings (Chibok 2014, Dapchi 2018) designed to terrorise the educational system.²⁰ The political indicator is catastrophic (Red): women hold under 5% of seats in the 10th National Assembly, among the lowest rates in the world, smothered by electoral violence and the grip of financial godfathers.²⁰

Socio-political context and major challenges

Nigeria operates under a complex overlap of three legal systems: civil law, Islamic law in the northern states, and customary law. This pluralism creates loopholes: local authorities bypass child-marriage prohibitions by citing custom, and domestic violence is often treated as a family matter by police.

The cost of accessing justice is prohibitive, and judicial corruption discourages survivors from going to trial. The political space functions as a toxic and sometimes violent boys' club, making campaigns physically dangerous for women candidates.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Senegal offers a very solid political profile and a nuanced one on reproductive health. The GBV indicator is orange: under pressure from a highly organised civil society, the country passed a landmark law in January 2020 criminalising rape and paedophilia with heavy felony sentences.²¹ FGM, banned since 1999, nonetheless persists endemically in the peripheral regions of the South (Casamance) and East (Tambacounda, Kédougou). The major sticking point remains medical abortion, prohibited even in cases of rape or incest, in direct tension with Article 14 of the Protocol.²¹

Schooling is orange with steady progress, although early pregnancy still too often ends a girl's formal education. Senegal's great pride is its political indicator (Green): the rigorous application of the 2010 Absolute Parity Law has kept women above 40% of the National Assembly for over a decade, placing the country among world leaders, even as feminist organisations criticised the reduced number of women in the 2024 cabinet.²¹

Socio-political context and major challenges

Senegal pairs a strong democratic tradition with the immense social power of religious brotherhoods. Resistance to full implementation of the Protocol, notably on Article 14, comes mainly from conservative religious lobbying that accuses feminist NGOs of promoting murder, freezing political leaders who fear electoral sanction.

And although women are numerous in Parliament, executive decision-making posts, sovereign ministries, agency directorships, and mayoralties remain heavily male-dominated: quantitative parity is not yet qualitative parity of power.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Sierra Leone is the recent legislative success story of the sub-region, and this edition scores it with precision rather than enthusiasm. The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, assented in July 2024, is historic: it sets the marriage age at 18 without ambiguity and criminalises not only adult husbands but parents, officiants, and involved chiefs, with penalties of up to 15 years, a masterful application of Article 6.²² The Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (GEWE) Act of 2022 is equally significant, imposing a binding 30% minimum in parliament, government, diplomacy, and private-sector management.²² The political indicator nonetheless remains orange: the first elections held under the Act left women’s share of Parliament at roughly the statutory floor, cabinet appointments have tracked below it, and the Act’s private-sector enforcement machinery is untested. A 30% floor, partially reached, is progress; Article 9’s standard is parity.

The anti-GBV indicator, however, cannot be green. Sierra Leone still has no law criminalising FGM, one of the few countries in the region without any statutory ban, while an estimated 83% of women aged 15 to 49 have been cut, largely through Bondo initiation.²² Under this Barometer's scoring rule, a comprehensive FGM statute is a floor condition for green.³ One landmark law does not offset the absence of another. Education is orange and improving: after the Ebola-era trauma of mass pregnancy-related exclusion, the Radical Inclusion policy now obliges schools to keep and reintegrate pregnant girls.

Socio-political context and major challenges

Emerging from a civil war in which mass rape was a weapon of destruction, Sierra Leone has developed an extremely resilient and combative women's civil society, and the current government has made women's rights a stated priority. Endemic poverty and weak state infrastructure outside Freetown remain the main constraints: good laws in the capital are not enough.

The unfinished business is precisely where power is most local. Bondo societies remain socially and politically influential, and successive governments have declined to table a comprehensive FGM prohibition, restricting themselves to memoranda of understanding on cutting minors. Until Parliament crosses that final hurdle, the country's celebrated momentum on child marriage and quotas coexists with a legal vacuum on the most widespread harmful practice on its territory.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Togo shows measured but tangible progress, with its most visible gains at the summit of the state. On GBV (Orange), the country's revised Penal Code (2015) and its more egalitarian Persons and Family Code mark real advances.²³ Access to criminal justice, however, remains hindered by corruption, slow procedures, and community preference for customary mediation, even in rape cases, which fosters impunity.

For schooling (Orange), the government has implemented strong measures, notably full exemption from school fees for girls in public secondary schools; period poverty and early pregnancy still sustain a problematic dropout rate. Politically (Orange), Togo presents a striking split: women have held the offices of Prime Minister and President of the National Assembly, along with sovereign ministries, a powerful role-model effect for young girls, while women’s share of the National Assembly stays under a fifth and no binding quota law governs parliamentary or local elections.²³

Socio-political context and major challenges

The Togolese paradox lies in the contrast between a highly feminised summit of the state and a base of society that remains deeply patriarchal, particularly in the Savanes and Kara regions. Advances in the family code run into the wall of land realities: rural women cultivate land they can neither inherit nor own in practice, drastically limiting their economic empowerment despite the 2018 Land Code.²³

The influence of vodun and animist belief systems in certain southern communities requires a nuanced approach to combating ritual servitude practices.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Cameroon, a State Party since 2012, criminalised FGM in its 2016 Penal Code, and national prevalence is low, concentrated in pockets of the Far North and Southwest.²⁷ The GBV framework nonetheless remains fragmentary: there is no comprehensive GBV statute, marital rape is not criminalised, and documented harmful practices such as breast ironing sit outside any specific penal provision. Two armed crises drive conflict-related sexual violence: the Anglophone conflict in the Northwest and Southwest since 2017, and Boko Haram in the Far North.

Education is where the crises bite hardest: school boycotts, burnings, and attacks in the Anglophone regions kept hundreds of thousands of children out of class at the peak of the crisis, girls disproportionately.²⁷ Politically, women hold roughly a third of National Assembly seats, a respectable share achieved through party practice rather than law: Cameroon has no binding statutory quota, leaving the gains reversible.²⁷

Socio-political context and major challenges

Cameroon's dual legal heritage (civil and common law) and its centralised state have produced a paradox: sophisticated institutions in Yaoundé and Douala, and a near-total protection vacuum in the conflict zones, where survivors of sexual violence face both armed actors and the collapse of local courts. Displacement from the Far North and the Anglophone regions has pushed girls into early marriage as a coping strategy, and humanitarian access remains constrained.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Years of armed conflict have made sexual violence a defining feature of the Central African crisis, committed by armed groups and, in documented cases, by security actors, with survivors facing near-total impunity outside the capital. FGM, banned under the 2010 Penal Code, persists at around a fifth of women, and child marriage affects well over half of girls.²⁸ A genuine judicial innovation deserves note: the hybrid Special Criminal Court has begun delivering convictions for atrocity crimes, including conflict-related sexual violence, in recent years.²⁸

Education is red: girls' completion rates are among the lowest in the world, schools remain occupied or destroyed in several prefectures, and teachers are absent from wide areas. The political indicator carries the region's little-known bright spot: the 2016 parity law instituting a 35% minimum for women in public and private institutions. Women still hold barely an eighth of Assembly seats, so the law functions as a legal foothold awaiting political will.²⁸

Socio-political context and major challenges

The state's writ runs thin beyond Bangui, and survivors of GBV in the interior depend almost entirely on humanitarian actors and community networks. Displacement, the collapse of health infrastructure, and the recruitment of minors by armed groups compound girls' exposure. Any strategy that assumes functioning national institutions outside the capital will fail; the operative question is how to resource the community structures that already do the protective work.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Chad signed the Maputo Protocol in 2004 but, at the time of writing, has never deposited ratification, leaving Chadian women outside the treaty's protection.²⁹ Domestic law has moved further than treaty practice: a 2015 ordinance banned child marriage and the 2017 Penal Code criminalises FGM. Enforcement of both is minimal. Roughly a third of women have undergone FGM and about six in ten girls are married before 18, among the highest rates in the world.²⁹

Education is red: girls' secondary completion is among the lowest globally, and the Boko Haram crisis in the Lake Chad basin, plus the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Sudan's war in the east, have overwhelmed a threadbare school system. The political indicator is the nuance: a 2018 ordinance instituting a 30% quota for women in nominative and elective functions gives advocates a usable text, partially reflected in the post-transition institutions.²⁹

Socio-political context and major challenges

Chad's challenges mirror Niger's: extreme poverty, climate shocks that push families toward early marriage, and the authority of customary and religious leaders far exceeding that of the state outside N'Djamena. The eastern provinces now host one of the world's largest refugee influxes, overwhelmingly women and children fleeing Darfur, whose protection needs dwarf available services.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Congo-Brazzaville, a State Party since 2011, adopted one of Central Africa's most significant recent statutes: the 2022 Mouébara law on combating violence against women, which criminalises domestic violence, including marital rape, and mandates survivor services.³⁰ The indicator stays orange because the law is young: application decrees, budgets, and trained police units are still being put in place, and survivors outside Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire see little of the statute's promise. FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon in Congo.

Education shows decent primary parity but sharp attrition for girls in secondary school, driven by early pregnancy and household economics. Women hold roughly one seat in seven in the National Assembly; list-quota provisions exist but are weakly applied, and the executive remains heavily male.³⁰

Socio-political context and major challenges

The Mouébara law is a test case for the whole region: a strong text adopted in a highly centralised state with limited civic space. Whether it changes outcomes will depend on budget lines and police training, and on whether women's organisations are given room to monitor implementation and publish what they find. RFLD treats the law's implementation record as the indicator to watch through 2027.

Detailed analysis of indicators

The DRC, a State Party since 2008, has had strong sexual-violence legislation since 2006, and Congolese jurisprudence and medical practice (the work honoured by the Nobel Prize awarded to Dr Denis Mukwege) have shaped the global response to conflict-related sexual violence. The law is not the gap; the war is. The escalation in the East, including the fall of Goma and Bukavu to the M23 in early 2025, has driven mass displacement and a documented surge in rape as a weapon of war, with humanitarian access collapsing precisely where survivors are concentrated.³¹

Education is orange rather than red on the strength of a genuine national reform: the free primary education policy launched in 2019 brought millions of children into school, even as conflict displacement pushed others out. Politically, the Constitution proclaims parity and a 2015 law gives it form, yet women hold roughly one seat in eight in the Assembly. The appointment of the country's first woman Prime Minister in 2024 is a milestone the numbers beneath her do not yet match.³¹

Socio-political context and major challenges

The eastern conflict economy, minerals, taxation of displacement, and cross-border interference, sustains armed groups for whom sexual violence is a tactic of control. Survivors face a triple barrier: insecurity, distance from functioning courts, and stigma. Meanwhile the country's size means national averages conceal both the East's catastrophe and real institutional progress in Kinshasa and other provinces.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Equatorial Guinea illustrates a different failure mode: not conflict, but opacity. A comprehensive GBV bill has been in draft for years without adoption, leaving survivors dependent on general penal provisions applied by courts that publish little.³² Reliable data on violence, prosecutions, and services are scarce by design, and independent women's organisations operate under tight constraint. FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon.

In education, enrolment is broad but girls' retention collapses around adolescence, with early pregnancy a principal driver. Politically, women hold around a fifth of parliamentary seats and a handful of senior posts, including the presidency of the Senate, within a system where real power is dynastic and appointment-based rather than electoral.³²

Socio-political context and major challenges

Hydrocarbon wealth gives the state ample means and few external constraints. The absence of published statistics is itself a rights issue: what is not counted cannot be litigated, budgeted, or reformed. The most realistic advocacy path runs through the country's international commitments, including its obligations as a State Party to the Protocol, and through the technical ministries that engage with UN agencies.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Gabon, a State Party since 2011, carried out one of the continent's most coherent recent reform packages: the 2021 law on the elimination of violence against women, paired with civil-code revisions that struck discriminatory provisions on work, banking, and household authority.³³ FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon, and the framework, courts, protection orders, and defined offences, earns the anti-GBV indicator its green, with the caveat that the 2023 to 2025 political transition tested institutional continuity.

Education shows strong enrolment but stubborn retention problems driven by adolescent pregnancy, keeping the indicator orange. Politically, a 2016 law instituted a 30% quota for women's candidacies and senior public posts; application has been partial, and women's share of parliament sits well below the quota's promise even as women have held top institutional offices.³³

Socio-political context and major challenges

Gabon's test is durability: reforms adopted in 2021 must survive the political cycle that followed the August 2023 coup and the return to elected government in 2025. The infrastructure of enforcement, trained police, shelters outside Libreville, legal aid, remains thin, and the gap between a modern statute book and provincial reality is the familiar one.

Detailed analysis of indicators

The archipelago has had a domestic-violence law since 2008 and a functioning, if small, justice system; FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon.³⁴ The indicator stays orange because services are thin: one national referral chain, few shelters, and persistent normalisation of domestic violence that keeps reporting low.

Education is the bright spot: enrolment parity is essentially achieved and completion rates compare well with far richer states, earning green with adolescent pregnancy the residual concern. Politically, women hold roughly one seat in seven in the National Assembly and no binding quota exists, keeping the indicator orange despite a genuinely competitive democracy.³⁴

Socio-political context and major challenges

Small-state arithmetic cuts both ways: reforms can move fast when political will exists, and a single trained unit can change national practice; equally, one budget cycle can erase services. The country's stable, competitive politics make it a plausible early adopter of a Lusophone parity law on the Cabo Verdean model.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Burundi signed the Protocol in 2003 and, at the time of writing, has never deposited ratification, one of the continent's longest-standing gaps between signature and commitment.³⁵ Domestic law is nonetheless substantive: the 2016 law on the prevention and repression of gender-based violence is comprehensive on paper, covering domestic violence and survivor protection. Enforcement is weak, mediation of rape cases persists, and civic space constraints limit independent monitoring, keeping the indicator orange. FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon.

Education benefits from the fee-abolition policy in place since 2005, with strong primary parity and sharp secondary attrition. The political indicator is green, and instructively so: the constitutional 30% minimum for women in the Assembly, Senate, and government is actually enforced, with women holding well above a third of seats in both chambers.³⁵ Burundi proves a constitutional floor works when the electoral law operationalises it.

Socio-political context and major challenges

The paradox is a state that enforces its gender quota while declining the continental treaty that inspired it. Poverty, land pressure, and the legacy of cyclical conflict weigh on rural women, and the 2016 law's promise runs ahead of the police units and courts meant to apply it. Ratification would cost the government little and anchor domestic gains in continental law.

Detailed analysis of indicators

The Comoros holds an honourable distinction: it was among the very first states to ratify the Protocol, in 2004.³⁶ The 2005 Family Code sets the marriage age at 18, penal provisions cover sexual violence, and FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon. The indicator stays orange because services barely exist: listening centres depend on donor cycles, prosecution of sexual violence against minors is inconsistent, and matrilineal land traditions coexist with sharp inequalities in public life.

Education shows near-parity in enrolment with attrition in upper secondary. Politically, women hold under a fifth of Assembly seats and no binding quota exists, keeping the indicator orange in a system where the union presidency rotates among islands but rarely makes room for women at the top.³⁶

Socio-political context and major challenges

A small-island state with large diaspora influence, the Comoros can translate reform quickly when elites converge. The binding constraint is institutional capacity: one functioning referral chain for survivors, few trained magistrates, and data gaps that keep GBV invisible in budgets.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Djibouti, a State Party since 2005, banned FGM in its Penal Code as early as 1995, one of the region's oldest prohibitions. Three decades later, successive national surveys still record prevalence around seven in ten women aged 15 to 49, with prosecutions vanishingly rare, which keeps the indicator red on the Barometer's law-versus-practice test.³⁷ The encouraging signal is generational: prevalence among the youngest cohorts is measurably lower, evidence that sustained campaigning works even where courts do not.

Girls' enrolment has improved markedly from a low base, with gaps in rural and nomadic communities keeping education orange. Politically, the quota law raised to 25% in 2018 is respected in the National Assembly, where women hold roughly a quarter of seats; the indicator stays orange because representation operates within a dominant-party system with little pluralism.³⁷

Socio-political context and major challenges

Djibouti concentrates the Horn's dilemmas in miniature: pastoralist livelihoods under climate stress, large refugee and migrant flows toward the Gulf, and social norms on cutting that the state has legislated against but rarely prosecuted. The enforcement question is ultimately about medical and religious authority: who signs off, community by community, on abandoning the practice.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Eritrea has not ratified the Protocol, and its rights architecture is defined by the absence of the ordinary machinery of accountability: no national elections have been held since independence, the constitution remains unimplemented, and independent civil society does not exist.³⁸ Credit where due: the 2007 proclamation abolishing FGM was an early and serious text, and survey evidence points to real decline among girls. Prevalence among adult women nonetheless remains among the world's highest, and survivors of violence, including documented abuses within indefinite national service, have no independent recourse.³⁸

Education is red: enrolment and completion are low, and the final years of schooling are fused with military conscription, a structure that drives dropout and exile, girls prominently among those who flee. Political representation exists on paper in a National Assembly that has not met in decades.

Socio-political context and major challenges

There is no domestic advocacy path in the ordinary sense. The realistic levers are external: the diaspora, the African human-rights system, and the handful of technical cooperations the state maintains. RFLD's position is that engagement on FGM abandonment, where the state claims credit, can be a wedge for broader dialogue.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Ethiopia ratified the Protocol in 2018 and its 2004 Criminal Code criminalised FGM and early marriage two decades ago; national FGM prevalence, around two-thirds of women in the last major survey, has been declining across cohorts.³⁹ The indicator is orange for a grave reason: the Tigray war of 2020 to 2022 produced conflict-related sexual violence on a mass, documented scale, and subsequent conflicts in Amhara and Oromia have extended the pattern, with accountability barely begun.³⁹

Education carries the same duality: an enormous national system with rising girls' enrolment, and millions of children pushed out of school by conflict and drought. Politically, Ethiopia earns green on results: women held the Head of State role from 2018 to 2024, cabinets have approached gender balance since 2018, and women hold nearly two-fifths of the House of Peoples' Representatives, all achieved without a statutory quota, which is also the rating's fragility.³⁹

Socio-political context and major challenges

Federal Ethiopia contains multiple normative worlds: regions where child marriage is collapsing and regions where it remains the norm; a capital with a sophisticated women's movement and conflict zones where survivors cannot reach a clinic. Transitional justice for conflict-related sexual violence is the test on which the state's credibility with survivors now rests.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Kenya, a State Party since 2010, has built one of the continent's most complete GBV legal architectures: the Sexual Offences Act (2006), the Prohibition of FGM Act (2011) with its dedicated Anti-FGM Board, the Protection Against Domestic Violence Act (2015), and the Marriage Act (2014) setting 18 as the floor. FGM prevalence has fallen to about 15%, among the sharpest declines recorded anywhere.⁴⁰ The green rating comes with an enforcement warning written in 2024's headlines: the femicide emergency that brought Kenyans into the streets shows that statutes without policing and prosecution do not keep women alive.

Education is green: free primary, subsidised day secondary, a 100% transition policy, and school re-entry for young mothers. The political indicator is Kenya's chronic wound: the 2010 Constitution's two-thirds gender rule has never been implemented for Parliament despite repeated court orders, and women hold under a quarter of seats.⁴⁰

Socio-political context and major challenges

Kenya's women's movement is among Africa's most effective, which is why the gap between constitutional text and parliamentary practice is so corrosive: every unimplemented court order teaches that the gender provisions of the 2010 Constitution are optional. Femicide, digital violence against women in public life, and FGM's cross-border persistence in the northeast are the enforcement frontiers.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Madagascar signed the Protocol in 2004 and, at the time of writing, has never ratified it, an anomaly for a country whose domestic law has moved forward: the 2019 law on gender-based violence is a comprehensive statute covering domestic violence, with protection orders and defined services.⁴¹ The indicator is orange: the 2019 law is credited, its enforcement outside major towns is thin, child marriage affects around four in ten girls, and the ratification gap deprives Malagasy women of the continental backstop. FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon.

Education suffers from poverty-driven attrition, compounded in the famine-prone South. Politically, women hold under a fifth of Assembly seats with no binding quota, and the political rupture of late 2025 has added institutional uncertainty to every reform timetable.⁴¹

Socio-political context and major challenges

Madagascar's poverty rate is among the world's highest, and the kere food crises of the deep South push girls first out of school and then into early marriage. The 2019 law proved the legislature can act; ratification of the Protocol is the unfinished companion step, and it costs nothing the 2019 law has not already conceded.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Mauritius, a State Party since 2017, operates the region's most complete welfare-state architecture for women's rights: domestic-violence legislation dating from 1997 and repeatedly strengthened, a 2020 Children's Act that closed the child-marriage door by setting 18 without exception, functioning courts, and published data.⁴² FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon. Education is green from primary through free tertiary, with girls outperforming boys at most levels.

The gap is political: women hold roughly a quarter of the National Assembly, a one-third quota applies only at local level, and cabinet remains male-dominated, keeping the indicator orange in the region's strongest democracy.⁴²

Socio-political context and major challenges

Mauritius shows what the end-state of the legal agenda looks like, and that legislation alone does not deliver political power: dynastic party structures and candidate-selection practices, not law, are what keep women out of the Assembly. Domestic violence remains the volume crime against women, with reporting rising as stigma falls.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Rwanda, a State Party since 2004, is the continental reference on two of our three indicators. The 2008 GBV law is enforced through the Isange One Stop Centres, a model of integrated medical, psychosocial, and forensic response now studied across Africa; FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon.⁴³ Education delivers parity through twelve-year basic education, with girls' completion strong by regional standards.

Politically, Rwanda is the global outlier: women hold over 60% of the Chamber of Deputies, the highest share of any lower house in the world, built on a constitutional 30% floor that practice has doubled.⁴³ The honest caveat belongs in the same sentence: this representation operates within a tightly controlled political system, and numbers in parliament are not a proxy for open civic space.

Socio-political context and major challenges

Post-genocide reconstruction made women's inclusion a founding principle of the state rather than a sectoral policy, which is why the results are structural. The frontier issues are subtler: domestic-violence attrition in the courts, unpaid care work, and ensuring the parliamentary supermajority translates into agenda-setting power, not only presence.

Detailed analysis of indicators

The Seychelles, a State Party since 2006, passed a modern Domestic Violence Act in 2020 with protection orders and police duties, in a justice system small enough to apply it consistently; FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon.⁴⁴ Education is universal and green, with girls leading most attainment measures.

Politically, women hold under a quarter of the National Assembly with no quota, a decline from earlier decades when the country ranked among Africa's leaders, keeping the indicator orange.⁴⁴

Socio-political context and major challenges

The archipelago's issues are those of a high-income small state: domestic violence entangled with substance abuse, and the gendered fallout of heroin dependency on families. The representation slide shows that without institutional guarantees, early gains evaporate as party systems change.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Somalia concentrates the report's starkest numbers. FGM prevalence stands at 99% of women aged 15 to 49, the highest recorded anywhere in the world.⁴⁵ The Provisional Constitution prohibits female circumcision in terms, yet no implementing statute exists: the Sexual Offences Bill approved by cabinet in 2018 has never passed Parliament, and a rival 2020 text moved in the opposite direction before stalling.⁴⁵ Somalia signed the Protocol in 2006 and has not ratified. Al-Shabaab's control of territory adds a layer of organised violence against women that no statute currently reaches.

Education is red, with girls' enrolment among the lowest in the world, displacement and drought compounding exclusion. The political indicator is, relatively, the movement: a negotiated 30% quota for women has featured in successive electoral processes, delivering roughly a fifth of parliamentary seats, short of the commitment yet far above what an unstructured process would produce.⁴⁵

Socio-political context and major challenges

Clan-mediated politics, the federal-member-state contest, and insurgency crowd out social legislation; every attempt at a sexual-offences law becomes a proxy battle over religion and federal authority. Meanwhile Somali women's organisations, in Mogadishu and in the diaspora, run the protection systems the state does not, and the medicalisation of cutting is rising, a danger sign this report has flagged in Guinea.

Detailed analysis of indicators

South Sudan supplies the report's most recent good news at treaty level: it ratified the Maputo Protocol in 2023, becoming the newest State Party.⁴⁶ On the ground the indicators remain red. Conflict-related sexual violence persists across cyclical local conflicts, customary courts handle most cases affecting women, a comprehensive anti-GBV bill has been pending for years, and around half of girls are married before 18.⁴⁶

Education is red by the hardest measure: South Sudanese girls face some of the world's highest out-of-school rates, with flooding, displacement, and unpaid teachers compounding exclusion. The political indicator carries the framework: the 2018 peace agreement's 35% quota for women, partially reflected in the reconstituted legislature, is one of the strongest such commitments on the continent, awaiting the elections that would test it.⁴⁶

Socio-political context and major challenges

State formation, oil dependence, and elite bargaining leave social policy chronically unfunded, and the delayed electoral transition keeps every quota commitment provisional. Yet ratification matters: South Sudanese women's organisations fought for it, and it gives them, for the first time, a continental legal instrument to cite against their own statutes and customary practice.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Sudan is the report's gravest emergency. The war that began in April 2023 has produced mass, documented conflict-related sexual violence, used systematically and on an ethnic basis in Darfur and beyond, alongside the world's largest displacement crisis and famine conditions.⁴⁷ Sudan has never ratified the Protocol. The tragedy is sharpened by what came before: the transitional government criminalised FGM in 2020, a landmark for a country where nearly nine in ten women have been cut, before the 2021 coup and then the war buried the reform's implementation.⁴⁷

Education has collapsed: the great majority of Sudan's children, girls first among them, are out of school as fighting, occupation of schools, and displacement empty the system.⁴⁷ Politically, the women who led the 2019 revolution and won a 40% transitional quota commitment have been excluded twice over, by the coup and by the war; representation today is representation in exile and in the emergency rooms of the resistance committees.

Socio-political context and major challenges

Sudanese women's organisations, including the emergency response rooms sustaining besieged neighbourhoods, are performing state functions without a state. Any post-war settlement negotiated without them will reproduce the exclusions that preceded the war. Accountability for sexual violence, already documented by international fact-finding, must be non-negotiable in any peace framework.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Tanzania, a State Party since 2007, criminalised FGM for minors as far back as 1998, and prevalence has fallen to single digits nationally.⁴⁸ The orange rating rests on a scandal of legislative inertia: the Law of Marriage Act of 1971 still permits girls to marry at 15, and Parliament has not amended it despite the High Court ruling the provisions unconstitutional in 2016 and the Court of Appeal upholding that ruling in 2019 in the case brought by Rebeca Gyumi.⁴⁸ A state that ignores its own highest courts on child marriage cannot score green.

Education is green: fee-free basic education, and, decisively, the 2021 reversal of the policy that expelled pregnant girls, restoring young mothers' right to return to public school. Politically, the special-seats system keeps women above a third of Parliament, and the country has been led since 2021 by President Samia Suluhu Hassan, the region's most prominent woman head of state.⁴⁸

Socio-political context and major challenges

The Gyumi litigation made Tanzania a continental test of whether courts can force family-law reform; six years after the final judgment, the answer from Parliament is silence. Beyond the statute book, GBV desks in police stations remain under-resourced, and the special-seats system, effective at volume, is criticised for creating a second-class parliamentary track that parties control.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Uganda, a State Party since 2010, passed both a Prohibition of FGM Act and a Domestic Violence Act in a single year, 2010, and FGM prevalence is now statistically marginal nationally, concentrated in the Sebei and Karamoja sub-regions.⁴⁹ The indicator stays orange for the gaps the decade since has not closed: marital rape remains outside the criminal law, the long-promised marriage legislation has stalled for a generation, and enforcement of the 2010 Acts is chronically under-funded, with cross-border cutting a live evasion route.

Education is orange: universal primary and secondary policies coexist with high dropout and a teen-pregnancy surge from which re-entry guidelines have only partially recovered girls. Politically, Uganda's district woman representative system, one of Africa's oldest affirmative-action designs, keeps women above a third of Parliament, earning green with the standing caveat that reserved seats must feed, not cap, women's competition for open ones.⁴⁹

Socio-political context and major challenges

Uganda pioneered the reserved-seat model the region now debates: three decades on, the evidence shows it guarantees presence while party gatekeeping still limits power. The unfinished GBV agenda is legislative (marriage law, marital rape) and fiscal (police family-protection units), and the young, fast-growing population makes girls' retention in school the decisive variable for the next decade.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Angola, a State Party since 2007, legislated early against domestic violence with its 2011 law and modernised its criminal framework with the Penal Code that entered into force in 2021.⁵¹ FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon. The indicator stays orange because the protection chain remains thin outside Luanda and provincial capitals: few shelters, uneven police response, and a persistent preference for family settlement of violence cases. Child marriage still affects roughly three in ten girls.⁵¹

Education carries the post-war legacy: enrolment has expanded massively, yet girls' completion collapses after primary school in rural provinces, driven by distance, cost, and early pregnancy. Politically, women hold more than a third of National Assembly seats through party-list practice rather than statute, a respectable share with no legal floor beneath it.⁵¹

Socio-political context and major challenges

Oil wealth and a dominant-party system have built institutions faster than accountability. The 2011 law and 2021 Penal Code give advocates real texts to work with, and the binding constraint is fiscal and administrative: budget lines for shelters and trained units have not followed the statutes. Women anchor the informal economy that feeds Angola's cities while remaining marginal in the ownership of assets.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Botswana is the Southern region's only non-State Party to the Maputo Protocol, a holdout that decades of continental advocacy have not moved.⁵² Domestic law is substantive but incomplete: a Domestic Violence Act has existed since 2008, courts function, and yet marital rape remains outside the criminal law and national studies record among the highest GBV prevalence figures on the continent.⁵² FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon.

Education is the country's genuine green: near-universal basic schooling, strong parity through secondary level, and re-entry for young mothers. The political indicator is the paradox of one of Africa's oldest democracies: women hold barely a tenth of National Assembly seats, with no quota of any kind, a figure the change of government in 2024 did not improve.⁵²

Socio-political context and major challenges

Botswana disproves the assumption that wealth and stability deliver women's rights on their own. A first-past-the-post system, candidate selection controlled by male party structures, and the absence of the Protocol's external benchmark have left representation frozen for a generation. The 2024 political transition creates the most credible opening in decades to revisit both ratification and electoral reform.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Eswatini, a State Party since 2012, adopted a genuinely strong text in the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Act of 2018, covering a wide range of offences with survivor-protection machinery.⁵³ The indicator stays orange because enforcement runs through institutions that answer to an absolute monarchy: prosecutions are inconsistent, customary structures handle much of what the Act criminalises, and the civic space needed to monitor implementation has narrowed since the 2021 unrest.

Education benefits from free primary schooling, with adolescent pregnancy and the long shadow of the HIV epidemic driving girls' attrition. The political indicator is red: constitutional provisions pointing to 30% women's representation have never been met, women hold well under a fifth of seats, and the tinkhundla system's ban on party politics forecloses the usual quota routes.⁵³

Socio-political context and major challenges

Law reform in Eswatini has outpaced political reform: the 2018 Act shows the state can legislate to continental standard when it chooses, while the structure of power leaves women's organisations advocating without electoral leverage. Rural women's dependence on customary land allocation remains a core economic vulnerability the Protocol's Article 19 speaks to directly.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Lesotho, a State Party since 2004, filled its oldest legislative gap with the Counter-Domestic Violence Act of 2022, its first dedicated DV statute, adopted after years of civil society pressure.⁵⁴ The indicator is orange because the law is young and the problem is severe: reported GBV prevalence is among the region's highest, and services in the mountain districts barely exist. FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon.

Education is green, and unusually so: Lesotho runs one of the world's rare reverse gender gaps, with girls out-enrolling and out-completing boys, many of whom leave school for livestock herding.⁵⁴ Politically, a 30% reserved-seat rule operates at local-government level, one of Africa's earliest such schemes, while national representation sits just over a fifth with no parliamentary quota.⁵⁴

Socio-political context and major challenges

Chronic coalition instability has kept social legislation hostage to survival politics, which makes the 2022 Act's passage notable. The educational paradox carries its own warning: schooling advantage has not converted into economic or political power, and herd-boy exclusion is producing a generation of unschooled men, a social risk in its own right.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Malawi, a State Party since 2005, assembled its framework piece by piece: the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (2006), the Gender Equality Act (2013), the Marriage, Divorce and Family Relations Act (2015) setting 18 as the floor, and the 2017 constitutional amendment that closed the 15-to-18 parental-consent window for good.⁵⁵ That sequence is one of the continent's cleanest examples of legislating child marriage out of the statute book. The indicator stays orange because practice lags law: nearly four in ten girls are still married before 18, and chiefs' bylaws, not prosecutors, do much of the annulment work.⁵⁵

Education shows a long-standing readmission policy and stubborn attrition, with poverty and early pregnancy pulling girls out before secondary completion. Politically, women hold just over a fifth of parliamentary seats with no statutory quota, and cabinet representation fluctuates with each government.⁵⁵

Socio-political context and major challenges

Malawi's story features an actor this report meets rarely: traditional leaders as enforcers, with senior chiefs annulling child marriages by the thousand and returning girls to school. The lesson cuts both ways, showing what customary authority can do when aligned with the law, and how dependent enforcement remains on individual chiefs rather than institutions.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Mozambique, a State Party since 2005, has two strong statutes on the books: the 2009 law on domestic violence against women and the 2019 law on preventing and combating premature unions, one of Africa's most complete child-marriage prohibitions.⁵⁶ The indicator is orange for two reasons: prevalence, with nearly one in two girls still married before 18, and conflict, as the insurgency in Cabo Delgado has displaced around a million people at its peak, with abduction and sexual violence against women and girls documented features of the crisis.⁵⁶

Education pairs expanded access with sharp northern disruption, where schools have been destroyed or occupied. The political indicator is green on two decades of results: women have held above 40% of Assembly seats since 2019 and among the world's top shares for far longer, sustained by party parity practice rather than statute, which is the rating's fragility.⁵⁶

Socio-political context and major challenges

The 2019 child-marriage law was written by a broad civil-society coalition and passed unanimously, proof of what Mozambican advocacy can deliver. The test is the north: displacement is a child-marriage accelerant, and the post-electoral turbulence of late 2024 and early 2025 strained the institutions any protection response depends on.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Namibia, a State Party since 2004, holds one of the continent's oldest and strongest GBV frameworks: the Combating of Rape Act of 2000, which criminalised marital rape a generation before most peers, and the Combating of Domestic Violence Act of 2003, applied by functioning courts with published statistics.⁵⁷ FGM is not documented as a practised phenomenon. The green comes with an honest caveat: reported GBV rates remain high, and the framework's age shows in gaps around protection-order enforcement.

Education is green from fee-free primary (2013) and secondary (2016) through strong parity at every level. Politically, Namibia joined the continent's front rank in 2025: women hold more than two-fifths of the National Assembly under the ruling party's fifty-fifty zebra list practice, and the country inaugurated its first woman President in March 2025, Africa's newest woman Head of State.⁵⁷ As elsewhere, the reliance on party practice rather than statute is the rating's fragility.

Socio-political context and major challenges

Namibia shows what an early, complete legal framework buys: not the disappearance of violence, but institutions survivors can actually reach. The frontier issues are enforcement intensity, the gendered inequality bequeathed by one of the world's most unequal income distributions, and converting a historic presidency into structural guarantees that outlast one party's internal rules.

Detailed analysis of indicators

South Africa has the most elaborate GBV architecture in this report: the Domestic Violence Act of 1998 (strengthened in 2021), the Sexual Offences Amendment Act of 2007, three further amendment acts assented in January 2022, a National Strategic Plan on gender-based violence and femicide, and, since 2024, a statutory national council to drive it.⁵⁸ The indicator is nonetheless orange, and the reason defines the country's crisis: femicide rates run at a multiple of the global average, and research institutions document a woman killed by an intimate partner with numbing regularity.⁵⁸ No state in this report better illustrates that statutes alone do not keep women alive.

Education is green: near-universal schooling, parity through secondary level, and women the majority in higher education. Politically, women hold around 45% of the National Assembly and a long-standing near-parity presence in cabinet, sustained by party quota practice dating to 1994.⁵⁸

Socio-political context and major challenges

South Africa's paradox is a constitutional order written for equality operating amid extreme inequality, unemployment, and the normalised violence apartheid bequeathed. The machinery exists: specialised sexual-offences courts, Thuthuzela care centres, a funded national plan. The failure is in throughput, conviction rates, policing quality, and the economics that trap women in violent households, which is why RFLD reads South Africa as an enforcement emergency rather than a legislative one.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Zambia, a State Party since 2006, passed a comprehensive Anti-Gender-Based Violence Act in 2011, with fast-track courts and protection orders, and closed its child-marriage loophole with the Children's Code Act of 2022, which set 18 as the marriage floor and pulled customary unions under the same rule.⁵⁹ The indicator stays orange because legal dualism persists in practice, with customary settlement of violence and marriage cases still routine, and nearly three in ten girls married before 18.⁵⁹

Education is moving: Zambia pioneered school re-entry for pregnant girls back in 1997, and the free-education policy introduced in 2022 has driven a mass enrolment surge, with completion and classroom capacity the next battlegrounds. Politically, women hold roughly 15% of parliamentary seats with no quota, one of the region's weakest figures.⁵⁹

Socio-political context and major challenges

Zambia's trajectory is legislatively strong and politically thin: statutes keep improving while women's presence in elected office stagnates. The 2022 Children's Code is a genuine continental reference for harmonising customary and statutory law; the test, as in Malawi, is whether chiefs and local courts apply the statutory floor they now formally share.

Detailed analysis of indicators

Zimbabwe, a State Party since 2008, supplies this report's counter-example to Kenya, Tanzania, and Mali: when the Constitutional Court struck down child marriage in the 2016 Mudzuru case, Parliament eventually obeyed, enacting the Marriages Act of 2022 that sets 18 without exception and criminalises child marriage.⁶⁰ Court orders on gender reform can be implemented; Harare proved it. The indicator remains orange because the Domestic Violence Act of 2007 operates through an under-resourced system, economic collapse drives survivors back to perpetrators, and roughly one in three women were married as children under the old regime.⁶⁰

Education carries a strong legacy eroded by crisis: high literacy and parity, undermined by examination fees and teacher attrition that hit rural girls first. Politically, the constitutional women's quota, sixty reserved National Assembly seats, extended to 2033, keeps women around three in ten of the lower house with a substantially higher share of the Senate, earning green with the standing reserved-seat caveat.⁶⁰

Socio-political context and major challenges

Zimbabwe's rights story runs through its economy: statutes are modern, institutions exist, and hyperinflationary cycles strip both of operating capacity while pushing families toward the coping strategies, early marriage included, the law now prohibits. Apostolic sect practices remain the hardest enforcement frontier for the 2022 Act.