Africa: Ecowas Court and Women's Rights in West Africa - What's Working - and What Isn't

What the report says

The Conversation Africa analysis, republished by AllAfrica, examines how the Ecowas Court has become an important regional venue for women’s rights cases in West Africa. The court, based in Abuja, Nigeria, began as an economic tribunal under the Ecowas treaty and gained a human rights mandate in 2005. Since then, the article says, most of the cases it has heard have involved human rights claims, helped by procedures that let plaintiffs approach the court without exhausting every domestic remedy first.

The piece highlights several decisions the court has made on issues affecting women, including marriage, widowhood, domestic violence, employment, education, culture and conflict-related harms. It points to the 2019 “Waves” case involving Sierra Leone, in which a nongovernmental organization challenged the exclusion of pregnant schoolgirls from mainstream schools. The court ordered the government to lift the ban and close the alternative schools, a ruling the author describes as significant for access to education and gender equality.

At the same time, the analysis says enforcement remains uneven. Some Ecowas member states have not set up the national authorities intended to implement court rulings, and even where such systems exist, judgments are not always carried out. The article also notes concerns about inconsistent monetary compensation in women’s rights cases and limited use of the Maputo Protocol, the African treaty on women’s rights.

Overall, the author argues that the court has already expanded legal protection for women, but could become more effective if member states improved compliance, the court developed clearer compensation standards, and litigants brought more strategic public-interest cases.