Integrating the Africa Women’s Protocol in the Zambia National Legal Policy and Processes: Example from Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA)

This paper illustrates one example of how Oxfam GB Southern Africa Region supports the efforts of women’s-rights organisations to popularise and lobby for the ratification, domestication, and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Africa Women’s Protocol) in Zambia. It highlights some of the key challenges and successes encountered by women’s-rights organisations such as Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA – based in Lusaka, Zambia) that are related to drafting, popularising, domesticating, and implementing the Africa Women’s Protocol. It also highlights key strategies used by WLSA to popularise and lobby for improved legal and policy reforms. Some of the areas WLSA focuses on that are critical in the Africa Women’s Protocol are: HIV and AIDS, food security, sexual and reproductive health rights for women, and gender-based violence.