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The Maputo Protocol, officially called the “Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa”, was adopted by the African Union (AU) in Maputo, Mozambique on July 11, 2003.
The Maputo Protocol contains a broad spectrum of rights aimed at safeguarding and empowering women and girls throughout Africa.
Over the past two decades, the Protocol has played a pivotal role in advancing the rights of women and girls across the continent.
Rwanda is among the countries that have implemented the provisions of the Maputo Protocol, and also the first country with the highest number of female representation in the parliament, with more than 60 per cent of seats occupied by women. Other countries like Mozambique and South Africa have also made substantial progress in increasing women’s participation in politics and decision-making at the national and local levels.
Women’s access to sexual reproductive healthcare remains a top priority in the Maputo Protocol. Mozambique has aligned with global strategies to reduce perinatal and maternal mortality. This commitment is reflected in initiatives that reinforce antenatal care coverage, promote facility-based childbirth and ensure easier access to family planning services in line with the United Nations-mandated Sustainable Development Goals.
Yet, despite this progress, its full promise remains unfulfilled for millions due to shortfalls in ratification, domestication and effective implementation by many African governments.
As the Maputo Protocol marked its 22nd anniversary on July 11, 2025, Equality Now, a worldwide human rights organisation, reflected on how state reservations have undermined the Protocol’s promise to protect and promote the rights of African women and girls. This comes at a time when backlash against gender equality is intensifying across the continent.
According to a press release by Equality Now, reservations to the Maputo Protocol occurs when states choose not to be bound by specific provisions of the treaty. These, the organisation added, continue to limit key rights such as access to safe abortion, protection from child marriage, fair legal treatment in divorce and the right to inherit property.
The reservations, often supported by cultural or religious justifications, have real-life and potentially devastating consequences, particularly for survivors of gender-based violence and marginalised women and girls who are especially in need of legal protection.
In Africa, anti-gender actors are a serious threat to women’s rights, gender and sexuality diversity and democracy itself.
Equality Now’s 2025 report Words & Deeds: Holding Governments Accountable in the Beijing+30 Review Process finds that three decades on, women and girls continue to face discrimination in the law, with not one country achieving full legal equality. Laws and practices that constrain women’s and girls’ rights are obstructing progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality, putting the world off-track to meet these critical targets.
When states enter reservations, they effectively lower the minimum human rights standards established by the Protocol within their jurisdictions, undermining its overall impact, according to Equality Now.
For example, Uganda’s reservations to Article 14(1)(a), which calls for adequate, affordable and accessible health services, and Article 14(2)(c), focusing on protecting women’s reproductive rights, has significantly limited women’s reproductive autonomy and has contribute to high rates of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions resulting from incest.
In Kenya, the reservation to Article 14(2)(c) contradicts its own Constitution and contributes to at least 2,600 maternal deaths annually from unsafe abortions.
In Algeria, the state’s reservation allows for exceptions to the legal minimum age of marriage, enabling child marriage to persist under civil and customary law.
In March 2025, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted a resolution urging countries to withdraw their reservations to parts of the Maputo Protocol.
“This is a welcome move as this resolution will help develop a framework to guide African Union Member States on lifting reservations in collaboration with stakeholders,” said Equality Now in a statement.
African governments must uphold all their legal and moral obligations under the Protocol and collaborate meaningfully with civil society to ensure that every woman and girl in Africa can live with dignity, free from violence, discrimination and inequality.
