African Commission’s action popularis approach where the individual or the NGO sending the communication need not know or have any relationship with the victims of the violation.87 Such an approach enables an NGO to initiate a remedial action on behalf of a class of victims of specific violation. ii) Complaint Procedure Upon receipt of a communication from an individual or NGO, the ACHPR Secretariat may request further information if they find the complaint incomplete or inadequate. If there is sufficient information, the communication is transmitted to the concerned Government. Both parties are invited to submit their comments on admissibility, following which the Commission considers the admissibility of the complaint. If declared admissible, the Commission proceeds to a consideration of the merits of the complaint. In order to examine the merits, both parties must provide their observations on the matter. This may involve an oral hearing before the Commission during one of its regular sessions, which normally take place in Banjul, the Gambia. The merits consideration takes place in private. The Commission reaches a decision on whether or not there has been a violation of the Charter and accordingly arrives at a decision. The Commission makes itself available to the parties to assist with reaching a friendly settlement, if there is an indication that a settlement might be possible. The Commission continues to work with the parties to assist with implementation of its decision, but there is no formal enforcement mechanism and it relies essentially on the OAU political bodies for enforcement. 4.1.2 Decisions Relevant to Women’s Rights The African Commission has not yet issued any decision directly related to women’s rights generally or justice for crimes against women in particular. It has, however, made reference to or highlighted issues that are relevant to protection of women’s rights in some of its decisions, and certain mass crimes cases such as the case concerning Darfur, have dealt with rape allegations amongst a host of other violations. In doing so, the Commission relies not only on the African Charter but other sources of international law and human rights treaties. Decisions relevant to women include those on the following issues: i) Inhuman and Degrading Treatment In Doebbler v Sudan, 88 the African Commission clarified that the African Charter also prohibits inhuman and degrading treatment in addition to cruel treatment and torture. Such inhuman and degrading treatment includes actions that “humiliate or force the individual against his will or conscience”. The Commission emphasised that the prohibition “is to be interpreted as widely as possible to encompass the widest possible array of physical and mental abuses”.89 Such recognition of prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment is relevant to women’s experience of violence. Forcing women to strip in public as was alleged in the Doebbler communication, forcing women to urinate and defecate in public, abusing women with sexual innuendos, and humiliating women by attacking their characters particularly before their families or other persons they care about, are examples of different forms of inhuman and degrading treatment meted out to women that escape notice and recognition of the law.90 Women survivors have recounted similar experiences of violence by armed forces in conflict and post-conflict countries that would likely meet the test of “widest possible 87 Article 19 / Eritrea, ACHPR Commn. No. 275/03 available at: http://caselaw.ihrda.org/doc/275.03/view/. 88 Curtis Francis Doebbler v. Sudan (Comm. No. 236/2000 (2003)) available at: http://caselaw.ihrda.org/doc/236.00/view/. 89 Ibid., ¶¶ 36 & 37. 90 See ‘Mass Rape, Rape as Weapon of War and Women in War Zones,’ Reports of violence against women in conflict and post-conflict countries available at: http://www.angelfire.com/space2/light11/women/mass1.html. REDRESS | REGIONAL MECHANISMS 27