An African treaty that rejects longstanding international human rights obligations moved a step closer to becoming policy this week as governments across the continent met in Ghana. The draft African charter on family, sovereignty and values, seen by the Guardian, asserts that African values and culture are under attack from “foreign ideologies” and urges states to withdraw from agreements like the 2003 Maputo protocol.
The charter is the first attempt to impose a continent-wide legal framework rooted in a moralistic rather than rights-based viewpoint. It claims that sexual and reproductive health and rights are an existential threat to the African family, and falsely states that policies based on these rights promote abortion on demand. The draft also rejects comprehensive sex education, which it claims sexualises children.
African legal experts, reproductive rights groups and LGBTQ+ advocates have condemned the charter as regressive and dangerous. Gilbert Mitullah, a Kenyan lawyer, said: “It is a licence to oppose, regress on or refuse to implement existing commitments on sexual and reproductive health, and on LGBTQ rights, and to dismantle the Maputo protocol from within.”
The charter was drawn up by a core group of African lawmakers, led by Ugandan government ministers, at the annual inter-parliamentary conference on family values and sovereignty. The objective of the 2026 conference, held in Ghana for the first time this week and attended by representatives from 20 countries, was to advance the charter to the African Union general assembly next February.
Critics say the charter’s definition of family based strictly on heterosexual marriage ignores the huge diversity of families across the continent. The Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA) argues that prioritising the family over the individual risks legitimising the subordination of women, children and adolescents to collective family interests.
The terminology in the charter exposes the strong influence of conservative Christian organisations from the US and Europe that oppose abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Family Watch International, an Arizona-based Christian lobbying organisation, supported the charter but denied participating in the conference. Critics describe the charter as a “transplant” of Western anti-rights ideology dressed in African garb.
Source: www.theguardian.com