2
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and all other
international and regional conventions and covenants relating to the
rights of women as being inalienable, interdependent and indivisible
human rights;
NOTING that women's rights and women's essential role in
development, have been reaffirmed in the United Nations Plans of
Action on the Environment and Development in 1992, on Human
Rights in 1993, on Population and Development in 1994 and on Social
Development in 1995;
RECALLING ALSO United Nations Security Council’s Resolution 1325
(2000) on the role of Women in promoting peace and security;
REAFFIRMING the principle of promoting gender equality as
enshrined in the Constitutive Act of the African Union as well as the
New Partnership for Africa’s Development, relevant Declarations,
Resolutions and Decisions, which underline the commitment of the
African States to ensure the full participation of African women as
equal partners in Africa’s development;
FURTHER NOTING that the African Platform for Action and the Dakar
Declaration of 1994 and the Beijing Platform for Action of 1995 call on
all Member States of the United Nations, which have made a solemn
commitment to implement them, to take concrete steps to give greater
attention to the human rights of women in order to eliminate all forms
of discrimination and of gender-based violence against women;
RECOGNISING the crucial role of women in the preservation of African
values based on the principles of equality, peace, freedom, dignity,
justice, solidarity and democracy;
BEARING
IN
MIND
related
Resolutions,
Declarations,
Recommendations, Decisions, Conventions and other Regional and
Sub-Regional Instruments aimed at eliminating all forms of
discrimination and at promoting equality between women and men;
CONCERNED that despite the ratification of the African Charter on
Human and Peoples' Rights and other international human rights
instruments by the majority of States Parties, and their solemn