For many women in Africa, the walk to a water point or a shared toilet carries a risk of violence. RFLD’s policy brief, Women, Water and Article 15 of the Maputo Protocol, treats safety as a core part of the right to water. This article sets out what the evidence shows and what States can do about it.
What the research shows
In 2023, Tallman and colleagues published a global review of the evidence on water insecurity and gender-based violence in the journal WIREs Water. They examined 18 peer-reviewed studies. Thirteen of them, or 72%, came from sub-Saharan Africa.
The most common link they found was an “increased risk of sexual and physical violence for women who walked long distances to access water”. The review also found that household water shortages were linked to intimate partner violence. When water is scarce, tension inside the home rises, and women bear the consequences.
One study, one in four
The best quantified African study comes from South Africa. Jayaweera and colleagues followed a cohort of 1,870 young women aged 13 to 20 in rural Mpumalanga. Their results, published in 2023, are sobering:
- 25.9% reported having experienced violence at some point while collecting water or using toilets;
- 29.0% said they worried about such violence;
- 4.0% had experienced sexual violence while collecting water;
- all of them were adolescent girls or young women, many still of school age.
In other words, roughly one young woman in four in this community had faced violence linked to meeting a basic daily need.
Fear shapes daily life
The WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme’s 2023 gender report adds a wider view. Women and girls are more likely than men to feel unsafe walking alone at night. They also face harassment at shared sanitation facilities.
Fear and lack of privacy also shape daily routines. The Joint Monitoring Programme’s 2025 report found that girls aged 15 to 19 are less likely than adult women to take part in school or work during menstruation. Safe, private facilities are part of the answer.
The Sanitation and Water for All partnership and the Institute for Sustainable Futures describe another form of abuse in a 2026 policy brief. They name “sextortion related to water” as a corruption that particularly affects women in parts of Africa and Asia.
Displacement raises the risk
In the Sahel, conflict and displacement have pushed water sources further away. A 2025 paper on displaced women in the region reports that in Dori, Burkina Faso, fetching water and firewood “has become considerably more hazardous”. Women in Ayorou, Niger, report that “the increasing distance from water sources has negatively impacted their health”.
A gap in the evidence
RFLD’s brief states one limitation openly. No nationally representative survey in West Africa measures violence experienced during water collection. The large household surveys used by governments, the Demographic and Health Surveys and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, do not ask the question.
Without data, the problem stays invisible in policy. It is hard to plan safer water points, or to fund them, when no one has counted the risk.
What the law requires
The African Commission’s Guidelines on the Right to Water in Africa, adopted in 2019, are explicit. Guideline 22.2 asks States to “guarantee safe access to water for women and girls at any time of the day”. Read with Article 15 of the Maputo Protocol, this makes safety part of the right itself.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to water and sanitation reached a similar view in a 2016 report on gender equality. The report documents violence at places where women collect water or bathe. It calls on States to adopt “transformative approaches” that meet practical needs, such as safe facilities, and strategic needs, such as challenging stereotypes about unpaid care work.
What RFLD recommends
The brief asks States to make water points and sanitation safe from violence. Every school and health facility should have water, separate and lockable toilets, menstrual facilities and lighting. States should add a module on safety at water points to the Demographic and Health Surveys and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys.
Funders are asked to support national statistical offices to measure violence at water points. Civil society organisations are asked to document community evidence on safety, always with the informed consent of the women concerned. RFLD’s work on violence against women in West and Central Africa shows how careful documentation can move governments to act.
About the report
This article draws on RFLD’s report Women, Water and Article 15 of the Maputo Protocol, published on 4 October 2026. Read the summary, download the English edition or the French edition.
