New Report Underlines Need for Stricter Laws Against GBV in Africa

“Barriers to Justice: Rape in Africa, Law, Practice and Access to Justice” outlines inadequate criminalization of rape, weak legal implementation, rape myths, and victim-blaming as barriers to perpetrators escaping punishment. According to the report, 25 countries have penal codes with incomplete or ambiguous legal definitions of consent, which should be voluntary and genuine and can be modified or withdrawn at any time during a sexual act.

Also extensively detailed in the report is the lack of laws against marital rape, as well as the lack of protection for child brides in countries where child marriage is still legal. In countries dealing with armed conflicts, rape is used as a weapon of war to denigrate, disempower and demoralize communities.

“After examining rape laws across Africa, it is clear that to end impunity for perpetrators, governments urgently need to carry out comprehensive legal reform of rape laws, strengthen enforcement mechanisms, and improve access to justice and support for survivors,”says Jean-Paul Murunga, a human rights lawyer and the report’s lead author.

There’s minimal awareness of how victims and survivors of rape can successfully seek justice, and, in most African countries, a severe lack of trust in the legal systems stops victims and survivors from coming out against their abusers.

Equality Now’s report comes amidst the ongoing16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign by UN Women. A global crisis, it is estimated that a woman is killed from GBV every 10 minutes, and one in three women will experience violence in their lifetime. In Africa, there are marches andraces in demonstration against femicide. Online, activists are drawing attention to the scourge of femicide with‘Not Another Hashtag’ on X.

This year, while there have been positives, like theabolishment of child marriage in Sierra Leone and the upholding of the ban on female genital mutilation in The Gambia, there have been gruesome lows, including the rampant,unchecked violence against women in East Africa, attempts torepeal anti-GBV laws in Nigeria, and the threatening of womenfighting against femicide in Ethiopia.