On 15 October 2026, at the margins of the Sidelines of the 89th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Commission Session), the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria (the Centre) was represented on a panel discussion hosted jointly by the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice (Vance Center) in partnership with Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement (RFLD). The theme of the convening was ‘Technology- Facilitated Gender-Based Violence in Africa: Towards a Regional Framework for Protection and Accountability.
Our submission on the panel reflected on the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) as a regional framework regulating state obligations on women in Africa. The definition of Violence Against Women as is contained in article 1(j) of the Maputo Protocol was the basis of the intervention. The Maputo Protocol defines VAW/G as all acts perpetrated against women which cause or could cause them physical, sexual, psychological, and economic harm, including the threat to take such acts; or to undertake the imposition of arbitrary restrictions on or deprivation of fundamental freedoms in private or public life in peace time and during situations of armed conflicts or of war.
Elaborating on the fact that the conduct prohibited under the Maputo Protocol is any and all conduct that results in harm which may take place in public or private life, technology-facilitated gender-based violence is included. Where conduct results in harm that is sexual, physical, economic or psychological, it would raise state obligations under the Maputo Protocol. We further elaborated on the inclusion of a protection from harm arising in both public and private life in the definition. Articles 2,4, 25 and 26 of the Maputo Protocol, incorporate the principle of due diligence calling on States to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women whether occurring in private or public. In terms of this principle, should a state fail to adequately protect, prevent, prosecute or punish and remedy acts of violence, a state party to the Maputo Protocol may be liable for conduct (of third parties) not directly imputable to it.
The use of the descriptive words ‘public’ and private’ in the definition is not to mean the physical site of the violence. Rather, it is a normative recognition of the structural nature of violence against women and seeks to collapse the proverbial public-private divide on state responsibility for violation of human rights in this context. The Maputo Protocol references the private life as the family realm (reproductive life, intimate life and the places of social reproduction). Further, it references public life as the traditional concepts of the productive political, market, parliamentary and state spheres. By collapsing these spheres, state obligation to tackle all forms of violence that results in harm is captured in an enforceable legal treaty.
Recognising the continuum of violence that may begin with intimate partner online stalking and end in the extreme end as femicide, the panel submission from the Centre illustrated that it was sufficient to use the existing framework developed under the rebrick of the Maputo Protocol to hold states accountable for their failure to prevent, protect, prosecute and punish and provide remedies where violations occur as a result of acts that cause physical, economic, psychologic and sexual harm.
SIDA is currently funding the work of the Centre relating to Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence. The Centre is grateful to the organisers for the opportunity to present in this convening and share in seeking innovative ways to tackle a different manifestation of VAW/G that is nonetheless based on the same structural social and legal dynamics
For more information, please contact:
Tel: +27 (0) 12 420 4306
matilda.lasseko-phooko@up.ac.za