The STEWARDS WOMEN organization has launched a campaign for the national legislative assembly to ratify the Maputo Protocol.

This is a section of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights that seeks to address the rights of women.

In January 2013, South Sudan signed the Protocol, but it has not been ratified by the national assembly.

The STEWARDS WOMEN wants South Sudan to join 15 African countries that have ratified the protocol.

“we’ve received enormous support and we think by the time when this Maputo Protocol reaches parliament, it will be ratified because we are working hand in hand with the ministry of gender under which this policy directly falls,” said Josphine Chandiru, program coordinator for the activist group.

The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, better known as the Maputo Protocol, guarantees comprehensive rights to women including the right to take part in the political process, to social and political equality with men, to control of their reproductive health, and an end to female genital mutilation.

As the name suggests, it was adopted by the African Union in the form of a protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Maputo, Mozambique.