Honourable Chairperson,

Honourable Commissioners,

Distinguished Delegates,

The Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa wishes to thank you for the opportunity to address the 89th Ordinary Session of the African Commission.

Among the many human rights concerns we have across the continent, we take this opportunity to highlight five issues: 1) the impact of extractive activities on communities in Ethiopia; 2) the ongoing conflict in Darfur, Sudan; 3) the situation of African migrant workers in the Middle East and Gulf States; 4) Externalisation of immigration and 5) the shrinking civic space and concerns regarding the Draft Declaration on the Promotion of the Role of Human and Peoples’ Rights Defenders and their Protection in Africa.

Ethiopia:

In Ethiopia, we draw the Commission’s attention to the continuing impacts of the Lega Dembi gold mine on Indigenous Guji communities, particularly children. Evidence from the Ethiopian Government’s 2018 community health study found congenital malformations in over 17% of live births in communities around the mine, alongside exceptionally high rates of miscarriage and stillbirth. More recent evidence indicates that contamination and health concerns persist following the mine’s reopening in 2021, with hazardous levels of mercury, arsenic and lead detected in the area, and community reports of continuing birth defects, miscarriages and childhood illnesses. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has called on Ethiopia to urgently address the mine’s social, health and environmental impacts on children, including through compensation, rehabilitation, transparency and accountability.

We urge the Commission to engage Ethiopia on the situation, support independent monitoring of environmental and health impacts, and ensure effective remedies for affected communities, particularly children.

Sudan:

The ongoing war in Sudan is now well into its fourth year turning Sudan into the world’s worst humanitarian and human rights crisis in which half the population faces acute food shortages and famine looms. The war’s violence has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes and has polarized communities across the country.

We commend the Joint Fact-Finding Mission on the human rights situation in Sudan and urge the Commission to take concrete steps towards implementing the Mission’s recommendations, particularly those relating to the protection of civilians, human rights monitoring, and accountability for atrocity crimes committed in Sudan.

African migrant workers in the Middle East and Gulf States:

Further, we wish to highlight the grave human rights violations faced by African migrant workers in the Middle East and Gulf States. While we welcome the Commission’s previous interventions, including its calls concerning the reported executions of

Ethiopian migrants in Saudi Arabia, abuses extend far beyond such extreme cases. Migrant workers continue to face deceptive recruitment, excessive fees, contract fraud, passport confiscation, criminalisation of “absconding”, wage theft and limited access to justice under sponsorship systems.

Honourable Chairperson, the Commission’s protection of migrants cannot end at Africa’s borders. In line with the African Guiding Principles on the Human Rights of All Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers which were adopted by the African Commission in October 2023 during its 77th Ordinary Session, we urge the Commission to call on Member States to regulate recruitment agencies, strengthen pre-departure and consular protection, ensure safe repatriation and reintegration, and secure stronger protections in bilateral labour agreements.

Externalisation of Migration Governance:

Honourable Chairperson, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of migrants extensively addressed the concerns we have about the externalisation of migration policies through third-country deportation and transfer arrangements involving African States so we will not belabour the point. The irony must however not be lost on us that the African Union has declared the next decade as the Decade of reparations for Africans and people of African descent, necessitated by the harms of racialized chattel slavery of Africans who were forcibly captured, abducted, disappeared and trafficked across the Atlantic into territories where for centuries they were exploited and violated in egregious ways. And yet in this very decade several African states are allowing themselves to become conduits for similar capture, abduction, disappearance and trafficking of mostly Africans and people of African descent against their will across the Atlantic, except this time in the opposite direction. And once they arrive in these African countries, many are being subjected to arbitrary detention, degrading treatment and chain-refoulment. This situation must bear on the conscience of the leadership of all African states involved in these arrangements. This cycle needs to stop if we value the dignity of Africans and people of African descent.

We welcome the Commission’s Resolution 645 and urge the Commission to maintain this issue firmly on its agenda, monitor emerging agreements and ensure that African States comply with their obligations under the African Charter, including non-refoulement, individual assessment and effective judicial oversight. Ultimately this issue deserves the attention of the African Union’s highest decision-making body, the Assembly of Heads of States and Governments and we urge Commission to make such referral as matter of urgency.

Shrinking civic space:

Honourable Chairperson,

The concerns relating to the shrinking civic space has been well articulated by the representative of the NGO Forum and the Chair of NAHRI in the remarks. Several NGOs have also raised their concerns, which we fully support. The Commission has an important role to play to improve the situation, and we welcome the Commission’s ongoing work on the Draft Declaration on the Promotion of the Role of Human and Peoples’ Rights Defenders and their Protection in Africa. We must however re-echo the concerns that we raised with aspects of the current draft which could weaken the protection it seeks to provide. In particular, the draft’s conditional framing of who qualifies as a human rights defender, its inclusion of State institutions and security actors within the definition which blurs the line between duty bearers and rights holders, and the broad duties imposed on defenders, risk undermining their independence and ability to criticise, challenge and hold States accountable. We are also concerned that references to “African values,” “traditional values,” morality and public order, without adequate safeguards, could be invoked to restrict legitimate human rights advocacy, particularly by defenders working on issues that challenge prevailing social or political norms.

IHRDA and other CSOs have written to the Commission and engaged the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and Focal Point on Reprisals in Africa. It is our hope that our submissions will be seriously considered in the revision of the draft Declaration. Africans expect the final text to provide a strong and effective framework for the recognition, promotion and protection of human rights defenders.

Thank you for your attention.