Women's rights: a critical issue of equity and sustainable development with examples from Africa Part II A

Abstract

This paper sets out to examine the state of women's rights in Africa in the context of the Convention and the constraints for its full implementation. Part I situates the scope of the Convention which spells out the meaning of equality and proposes an agenda for its achievement in section I. In section II, the state of the implementation of the Convention is examined, with particular focus on the status of women's participation in political and public life and in socio-cultural and economic development. The exercise reveals that, in most sectors, women continue to trail behind in the decision-making process both at the national and international levels. In the economic sector, while women do not experience direct discrimination in the area of employment, their presence is negligible in the formal sector while they are predominant in the informal one. This excludes them from the protection of the labour codes.