Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and Interights v Egypt Communication 323/06 was the first communication before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on securing the rights of women in Africa. The complainants argued that the state had failed in their obligation to protect them from sexual violence. They further argued that such violence was discriminatory in nature meted against them on the basis of their sex and political opinion. The Commission in its deliberations agreed with the complainants and held that the state had failed in its duty.
This abstract seeks to interrogate this decision and the theoretical framework applied the deliberations. While this decision affirmed the rights of the complainants, it did so mainly on the basis of a liberal feminist approach. Although an accepted approach to feminism, our challenge with the decision is it does not do much to challenge the underlying structures of patriarchy. A liberal approach to feminism upholds male standards as the measure against which all acts must be measured and to that extent simply serves to entrench the status quo.
This decision was an opportunity for the Commission to develop jurisprudence on what equality means in the African context and a primarily western approach was employed. We argue that this approach is not useful in an African context and therefore problematize the Commission’s reliance on a liberal approach to women’s issues. In response thereto we (re)imagine this decision from an alternative feminist approach. Considering the extent to which the rationale for the outcomes would be different based on the application of a different theoretical lens. Ultimately it is hoped that through this paper we would contribute to the discourse on an African feminist approach to the enforcement of women’s rights as articulated in the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women.