Report Launch on the Human Rights of Women and Girls of African Descent
As a follow-up to our preliminary launch of the report “Looking Back, Reaching Forward: Commemorating the International Decade for People of African Descent and the Human Rights of Women and Girls,” which marked the end of the International Decade for People of African Descent, we officially launched it on April 15, 2025. Organized by the University of Dayton Human Rights Center in collaboration with the University of The Bahamas and the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, the launch took place during the 4th Session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent(April 14-17 2025) at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from April 14–17.
Dr. Satang Nabaneh, Director of Programs at the University of Dayton Human Rights Center, opened the event and introduced the year-long research initiative. The project examines how international human rights treaty bodies—including CEDAW, CERD, the Human Rights Committee (HRC), and the Committee on Migrant Workers (CMW)— address the rights and realities of women and girls of African descent.
Following the introduction, Ambassador June Soomer delivered powerful remarks that traced the historical denial of humanity to Black women and girls—from the atrocities of enslavement to their enduring legacies of oppression today. She spoke of the exploitation of Black women for labor and reproduction, the legacy of sexual violence and denial of bodily autonomy, and the persistent stereotypes that continue to marginalize them. Ambassador Soomer called for recognition of the genocide of Africans during slavery and demanded reparations specifically for Black women. Her message was a strong reminder that remembering the past must be tied to urgent action in the present to uplift and empower Black women and girls.
Gaynel Curry, Vice Chair of the Permanent Forum, also stressed the importance of remembering individuals and introduced the research team. Te’Neill Francis (The Bahamas), Olamide Ajala (Nigeria), and Gabrielle Pintard-Newry (The Bahamas) presented the research analyzing UN treaty body concluding observations and case studies. Their findings revealed that the specific rights and experiences of Black women and girls are often neglected. The key themes highlighted in their research included underrepresentation, lack of disaggregated data, violence in many forms, and the urgent need for Black women in leadership positions. This analysis underscores the significant gaps that persist in addressing the intersectional challenges faced by Black women and girls within international frameworks.
The case studies from Mauritania, the U.S., the U.K., Honduras, and Brazil illuminated the specific challenges Black women and girls face in relation to racial discrimination and structural inequalities. In the U.K., for example, the broad grouping of African-descended women under the BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) category obscured crucial disparities. Meanwhile, in Honduras, Afro-descended migrant women were excluded from meaningful migration policy reforms, and in Brazil, Afro-Brazilian women remained overlooked despite critical issues such as police violence and femicide. These findings underscore the pressing need for intersectional, targeted approaches to human rights protections for Black women and girls globally.
Following this overview, the conversation transitioned to a panel discussion. Ahmed Reid, the former chair of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, commended the thoroughness of the research. He stressed the importance of the Working Group’s unique capacity to conduct fact-finding missions and engage directly with affected communities. Reid further emphasized the necessity of an intersectional approach, noting that Black women and girls face discrimination shaped by multiple factors beyond race and gender alone. He highlighted disturbing global trends, pointing to consistent data that shows this group remains at the bottom of key indicators, such as maternal mortality and educational attainment. This intersectional lens is critical in addressing these compounded injustices.
Tamara Thermitus, Lawyer Emeritus and Distinguished Boulton Senior Fellow at McGill University's Faculty of Law (Canada), shared a personal experience of workplace discrimination, highlighting the concept of “know your place aggression” and upward bullying faced by Black women in positions of power within predominantly white spaces. This personal account underscored the systemic challenges that persist even when Black women achieve leadership roles.
Tiffany Roberts, Public Policy Director at the Southern Center for Human Rights, brought a stark focus to the situation in the United States, particularly the overrepresentation and erasure of Black women within the criminal legal system. She stated that in the United States, there are 196,000 women incarcerated, and Black women's incarceration has grown at twice the pace of men's incarceration in recent decades. Furthermore, Black girls are overrepresented in juvenile detention, mirroring their overrepresentation in exclusionary discipline in schools. Roberts emphasized the devastating impact of this removal of Black women from their communities and shared a disturbing case highlighting human rights abuses against women with intellectual disabilities in a local jail, even by officials of African descent. She stressed the need for accountability within their own communities and for recommendations that can be implemented at the hyper-local level, echoing Fannie Lou Hamer's powerful words: “None of us are free until all of us are free.
Justice Mavedgenze, Senior Legal Advisor and Programs Director, The Africa Judges & Jurists Forum (Zimbabwe) then addressed the intersection of gender, racial discrimination, and reparative justice in Africa. He highlighted that the enduring legacy of colonialism includes a capitalistic system that marginalizes Black Africans, with Black women often relegated to care roles and excluded from the formal labor market. This has led to increasing poverty among Black communities, with a disproportionate impact on women. For every 100 men aged 25 to 34 living in extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, there are 127 women in the same situation. Furthermore, only 23% of women in Africa have access to credit. This economic marginalization contributes to gender-based violence and undermines women's participation in public affairs and elections. Only 25% of African legislators are women. Justice emphasized that the fight for reparative justice is a political one and that the underrepresentation of women in politics risks overlooking their specific experiences of violation during slavery and colonialism.
Anna Barreto, Vice President for Latin America at Planned Parenthood Global, then offered insights from Brazil, where Black women constitute 28.5% of the total population but remain marginalized in protection, representation, and decision-making. She argued that the report confirms the state’s neglect and the ‘fragmented recognition’ by international human rights mechanisms, which she sees as embedded within the global governance architecture, reflecting colonial hierarchies. Barreto criticized the elitist and exclusionary nature of global human rights spaces and the epistemic gatekeeping that often treats knowledge from community-led Black women's organizations as supplementary. She called for the international human rights system to make space not just for participation but for the methodologies, politics, and visions of justice from these communities. Barreto concluded with concrete suggestions for making recommendations more impactful through specific indicators, timelines, and accountability mechanisms, emphasizing the need to move beyond symbolic add-ons and recognize the intersectional rights frameworks being created by Black feminists across the diaspora, particularly in the realm of reproductive justice.
The launch concluded with a powerful call to action: the second decade must mark a renewed and strengthened commitment to ensuring that women and girls of African descent are empowered to reach their full potential—personally, academically, and professionally—free from racial and gender bias. These priorities were insufficiently addressed in the Concluding Observations during the the first decade. Moving forward, UN treaty bodies must intentionally center the transformative development and full realization of the human rights of women and girls of African descent.
Satang Nabaneh is Research Professor of Law at the University of Dayton School of Law and the Human Rights Center’s Director of Programs. A democracy, human rights, and governance specialist, her work spans human rights, democratization and autocratization, constitution-making and institutionalization of accountability structures, election processes, human rights, and transitional justice.