Banjul, 24 March 2021: IHRDA and Association des Femmes Juristes de Côte d’Ivoire (AFJCI) are organizing a 2-day women’s rights strategic litigation training workshop, 24-25 March 2021, in Abidjan for women and girls’ rights defenders from Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire.
The workshop seeks to equip human rights defenders with knowledge and skills to engage in strategic litigation for cases of violations against women/girls, and to strengthen advocacy against such violations using regional human rights instruments and mechanisms.
Topics covered include an overview of the situation of women/girls’ rights in Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire, regional and international normative frameworks on women/girls’ rights, women’s rights litigation in Africa, as well as the procedures and techniques to litigate before regional human rights mechanisms, notably the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC), and the ECOWAS Court.
Participants will also discuss ways of using legal instruments, such as the Maputo Protocol, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, to protect the rights of women/girls in their respective countries. They will as well identify strategic cases of women/girls’ rights violations which they would collaborate with IHRDA to take up for litigation.
The workshop is funded by Foundation for a Just Society, USA.
