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2.4. AU Campaign on Ending Female Genital Mutilation
The AU Assembly adopted the African Common Position on Child Marriage – the Sandton Commitment to Ending Child Marriage – in July 2015.240 H.E. President Edgar Lungu of Zambia became the AU Champion on Ending Child Marriage in Africa. Campaign strategies at the national level have aimed to achieve legal reform, policy advocacy and increased awareness and to encourage governments to adopt strategies to expedite the end of child marriage, including mobilising grassroots communities.241 Important AUC actions to achieve results have revolved around advocacy, monitoring capacity-building and technical assistance.242
Various milestones have marked the campaign at the continental level. The AUC has convened two continental African Girls Summits, in 2015 and 2018, to promote advocacy and the sharing of best practices on ending child, early and forced marriage and to review progress by Member States on commitments. In 2016, the AUC collaborated with the Confederation of African Football to use the platform to create awareness on the Campaign to End Child Marriage under the awareness theme “Together Against the Marriage of Young Girls.”243 The AU appointed a Special Rapporteur on Child Marriage and a Goodwill Ambassador for Ending Child Marriage in Africa in 2014. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child jointly issued a General Comment in 2017 to underscore African continental and regional commitments on the plight of children in child marriages, children at risk of child marriage and women who were married before the age of 18.244
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By 2018, 30% of the 24 AU Member States that had launched the campaign had enacted laws to advance its implementation;245 41% had developed national strategic plans to address child marriage, with 55% also establishing a national inter-sectoral coordination mechanism.246 Two RECs embraced the campaign. ECOWAS has a Child Policy, Plan of Action and Road Map Towards the Prevention of Child Marriage.247 SADC has a Model Law on Eradicating Child Marriage and Protecting Children Already in Marriage.248
It was originally envisaged that the campaign would run for two years but it was later extended to 2017.249 It was then extended to a second phase (2019–2023).250 Phase II (2019–2023) seeks to consolidate engagement and mobilise key stakeholders, programmes and initiatives, including AU Interdepartmental cooperation and research.251
On 11 February 2010, the AUC launched the AU Initiative on Eliminating Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in order to accelerate the end to the harmful practice. At the time of the launch, it was feared that more than 50 million girls aged below 15 years were at risk of being subjected to FGM if no significant interventions were taken.252 President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré of Burkina Faso was chosen as the AU Champion on Eliminating FGM.
In 2011, the AU formally called upon the UN General Assembly to adopt a resolution banning FGM globally.253 The African Group at the UN Headquarters in New York amplified the UN Commission on the Status of Women recommendation of March 2012 that FGM be formally considered by the General Assembly under the agenda item “Advancement of Women.”254 In 2012, the UN General Assembly unanimously passed a resolution banning FGM, whose ground-breaking text was also partially sponsored by the Group of African States.255
Agenda 2063 captured the continent’s aspirations to end FGM as a harmful practice (Aspiration 6). Three years later, in 2018, the AU stated that, out of the 27 African countries where FGM is practised, there is a prevalence rate of higher than 80% in eight African countries, and it found a correlation between the harmful practices of child marriage and FGM.256 In response, the AU adopted the Saleema Initiative: the AUC will mobilise Saleema Youth Victorious Ambassadors, who will work with the AU Youth Envoy to advocate the end of FGM. The campaign, which aims to end FGM by 2030, is designed as an advocacy and communication vehicle to engage communities, youth and women to participate in dialogue on the harmful practice from a multi-dimensional perspective.
