Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa has been recovered after years of search, an official said.
The Maputo Protocol is said to have disappeared in 2014 either in the parliament or the office of the president after it was passed by the legislature.
However, Aya Benjamin, the minister of gender, child, and social welfare, confirmed on Wednesday that the lost document had been recovered.
She was addressing the delegates to the International Women’s Leadership Conference in Juba on Wednesday.
“Our right honourable speaker whispered to me this morning that she was able to trace our Maputo protocol, and she has already submitted it to the office of the president.” ” We appreciate it,” Aya reported.
In July 2022, Jemma Nunu Kumba, Speaker of the Reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly (R-TNLA), said the Maputo Protocol that was believed to have vanished from the House would be re-tabled and ratified by the parliament.
“We will bring it to the parliament, table it, and pass it. I will take it with my own hands to His Excellency the President for signature,” she said.
Nunu said the document was submitted to the legislature and approved by the assembly while she was the minister of gender, children, and social welfare.
She stated that it got lost between the parliament and the Office of the President.
African leaders ratified the Maputo Protocol during the African Union Assembly in Maputo, Mozambique, in order to protect, promote, and actualise the rights of African women.
The treaty was signed by South Sudan in 2013, but has yet to be enacted into law by the president.
The lawmakers reportedly agreed to approve it but voiced a number of objections, including those related to the article that precludes polygamous marriage and that protects women’s rights to determine whether or not to have children.
The right of women to obtain an abortion in circumstances of sexual assault, rape, incest, and other delicate matters was among the sensitive concerns that topped the protocol’s ratification.
The Maputo Protocol has not been ratified by a bunch of countries, including South Sudan, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, and Sudan. The Protocol has been ratified by the vast majority of countries, although three nations have not done either. Morocco, Egypt, and Botswana are those nations.
On July 11, 2003, in Maputo, the AU Assembly passed the protocol in an effort to eradicate the persisting gender inequalities and anti-woman behaviors that exist throughout the continent.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Gender, Child, and Social Welfare stated in 2021 that the final, ratified document intended to protect kids from forced early marriages, human trafficking, and child labor has disappeared between the Parliament and the President’s Office.
The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) was reportedly introduced to the legislature in 2013 and ratified in 2014.
Nonetheless, Simon Malual Deng, a former member of the now-defunct Transitional National Legislative Assembly’s (NTLA) human rights-specialized committee, chastised the legislature for misplacing the document and blamed the error on the time and the frequent changes of parliament speakers.
Source: The City Review South Sudan
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