ABSTRACT
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR or the Commission) was created in 1987 following the adoption of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 1986. When it first came into force in 1988, the Commission failed to appoint a single woman commissioner. Since the appointment of the first woman in 1993, the African Commission has been progressively filled with women members elected in accordance with Article 31 of the African Charter. From this trend of progressively electing female members, the Commission’s special procedures must be analyzed, namely the mechanism of the Special Rapporteur on Rights of Women in Africa and the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in Africa. The African Union, in order to meet the requirements related to gender issues, has since required all its structures to have an equitable representation of women. In this regard, the African Commission is one of the best models for the good representation of women within the African human rights system. This chapter aims to analyze the trajectory of the African Commission in terms of the representation of women and how women members of this human rights institution have progressively fulfilled its several mandates.
