The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa , better known as the Maputo Protocol , is an international human rights instrument established by the African Union that went into effect in It guarantees comprehensive rights to women including the right to take part in the political process, to social and political equality with men, improved autonomy in their reproductive health decisions, and an end to female genital mutilation.
In early , Equality Now hosted a conference of women's groups, to organise a campaign to lobby the African Union to adopt the protocol, and the protocol's text was brought up to international standards.
The lobbying was successful, the African Union resumed the process and the finished document was officially adopted by the section summit of the African Union, on 11 July At the Maputo Summit, several countries expressed reservations. Tunisia, Sudan, Kenya, Namibia and South Africa recorded reservations about some of the marriage clauses. Egypt, Libya, Sudan, South Africa and Zambia had reservations about "judicial separation, divorce and annulment of marriage".
Burundi, Senegal, Sudan, Rwanda and Libya held reservations with Article 14, relating to the " right to health and control of reproduction". Libya expressed reservations about a point relating to conflicts. The protocol was adopted by the African Union on 11 July at its second summit in Maputo , Mozambique. As of September , out of the 55 member countries in the African Union, 49 have signed the protocol and 44 have ratified and deposited the protocol. There are two particularly contentious factors driving opposition to the Protocol: its article on reproductive health, which is opposed mainly by Catholics and other Christians, and its articles on female genital mutilation, polygamous marriage and other traditional practices, which are opposed mainly by Muslims.
Pope Benedict XVI described the reproductive rights granted to women in the Protocol in as "an attempt to trivialize abortion surreptitiously". The US-based anti-abortion organisation, Human Life International , describes it as "a Trojan horse for a radical agenda".
