What recent Ghana Conference resolved on rights of women

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OPINION

By Joy Ratem Ochwo

The international community has reaffirmed its commitment to advancing all human rights, including through the commemoration in 2023 of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 30th anniversary of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action.

Numerous States have pledged to eradicate extreme poverty, ensure universal health coverage, education, and social protection, and address disparities in economic, social, and cultural rights.

Despite global commitments, significant disparities persist in women’s access to healthcare, particularly concerning their Sexual and Reproductive Health. While initiatives focus on universal health coverage, women, especially those in marginalised communities, often face barriers such as limited access to information, inadequate infrastructure, cultural stigmas, and discriminatory laws that impede their ability to make informed decisions about their bodies and access essential SRHR services.

Addressing these challenges is crucial for achieving true gender equality and ensuring that progress in other areas, like education, translates into tangible improvements in the health and well-being of all women and girls.

To address these challenges, between the 25th -26th September 2025, in Accra, Ghana, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in partnership with Ipas Alliance Africa, held a Continental Workshop to promote women’s socio-economic rights, including women’s rights in the extractive industries, focusing on education, health, social protection and SRHR.

The workshop explored strategies to strengthen the implementation of AU instruments, address gender disparities, and empower women to participate fully in socio-economic development.

The workshop brought together ACHPR Commissioners and staff, Representatives of AU Member States, Representatives of National Human Rights Institutions, Organs of the AU, including the Pan-African Parliament, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Representatives of UN and regional human rights mechanisms, Civil society organizations and non-governmental organizations working on women’s rights, including SRHR advocates and extractive industries, Academics, researchers, and human rights experts and Representatives of the private sector, particularly from the extractive industries.

The overarching objective of the workshop was to create awareness about the socio-economic rights of women, including rights of women in the extractive industries, women with disabilities, elderly and young women and address systemic and structural issues that perpetuate violation of these rights, with particular focus on education, health, and social protection.

Key discussions revolved around reproductive justice and social economic empowerment, addressing disparities and enhancing access to education, ensuring universal health coverage and addressing vulnerabilities, strengthening women’s property and work rights, and challenges and human rights implications for women in the extractive industries. Discussions revealed that our education does not meet the needs of our societies today.

Our education is still largely colonial, and the right to education is still interpreted as “Right to Western education. There are efforts towards universal Health coverage; however, grassroots women travel long distances to access health care.

Women largely seek protection and health care out of pocket. Universal health care only focuses on primary health care. Societal norms continue to shape women's health-seeking behaviour, and there is largely lack of information and awareness about health care.

High rates of economic and financial crimes, illicit financial flows, tax evasion, debt financing and liquidity crisis largely affect budget allocation towards health and gender equity initiatives.

Majority of women are in the informal work sector with no maternity cover, no health insurance, and no pension. Women drive local commerce, food security initiatives and are top line responders in crises.

They work capably and form the economic foundation of societies because of fluid participation in work. The question remains whether or system is prepared to value women's contribution.

In Arua Market, 62% of women in the market suffer from sexual violence and harassment, 98% work without safety measures, 85% experience poor sanitation while at work, 88% operate from unsafe stalls, and the majority are denied access to affordable credit, while women who work as stone crushers provide invisible labour.

They have no contracts, no personnel protective equipment, no pension, undergo harassment by authorities and no rebuilding support when their shelters get destroyed by harsh weather.

Women have limited voice, unpaid care work continues to stifle their contribution to workspaces, and labour laws are largely patriarchal.

Women in the extractive industries include women who bear the brunt of mining, oil and gas. Women are affected by displacement due to the activities of the extraction.

Extractive activities, which are largely male-dominated, expose women to risks such as displacement, pollution of rivers, insecurity, malnutrition, Loss of livelihood, loss of property, diseases, and sexual harassment. There is insensitivity around women’s challenges, and women are pushed to live with it.

Key recommendations were that there is need to strengthen accountability mechanisms for the violation of sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Civil society needs to build a continental coalition focusing on making the socioeconomic rights of women a reality. Governments should upgrade the quality of education delivered and ensure that it is relevant to the needs of contemporary society and engenders critical thinking rather than rote learning, and adopt a pedagogy that trains young people in ways that equip them for the twenty-first-century world of work. Jurisdiction of contracts with transnational corporations in extractive industries should be with the courts of the territory in which the corporation’s activities are carried out to protect the natives of that country, and gender responsive clauses should be incorporated into work contracts.

There is need establish universal health insurance, portable pensions, accessible childcare, and comprehensive maternity benefits that support both formal and informal workers. Women’s land rights must not only be defined in the context of property, but legacy, power, survival and identity.

There is a robust legal framework, policies and regulations to support and protect the rights of women.

The realities, however, does not reflect these. Women are still largely living in marginalisation in different spheres of their lives. There is need for more efforts for targeted advocacy to make the socio-economic rights of women a reality, fundamental, not optional. Like one grass root woman put it, “The land knows us, but our society has forgotten us”.