Ashwanee Budoo-Scholtz - Violence Against Women and Criminal Justice in Africa: Volume II: Sexual Violence and Vulnerability

The Sustainable Development Goals Series is Springer Natures inaugural cross-imprint book series that addresses and supports the United Nations seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. The series fosters comprehensive research focused on these global targets and endeavours to address some of societys greatest grand challenges. The SDGs are inherently multidisciplinary, and they bring people working across different fields together and working towards a common goal. In this spirit, the Sustainable Development Goals series is the first at Springer Nature to publish books under both the Springer and Palgrave Macmillan imprints, bringing the strengths of our imprints together.

The Sustainable Development Goals Series is organized into eighteen subseries: one subseries based around each of the seventeen respective Sustainable Development Goals, and an eighteenth subseries, Connecting the Goals, which serves as a home for volumes addressing multiple goals or studying the SDGs as a whole. Each subseries is guided by an expert Subseries Advisor with years or decades of experience studying and addressing core components of their respective Goal.

The SDG Series has a remit as broad as the SDGs themselves, and contributions are welcome from scientists, academics, policymakers, and researchers working in fields related to any of the seventeen goals. If you are interested in contributing a monograph or curated volume to the series, please contact the Publishers: Zachary Romano [Springer; zachary.romano@springer.com] and Rachael Ballard [Palgrave Macmillan; rachael.ballard@palgrave.com].

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15486

Color wheel and icons: From https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/

, Copyright 2020 United Nations. Used with the permission of the United Nations.

The content of this publication has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States.

Cover credit: Korndanai Vitthayanukarun/EyeEm

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Violence against women and girls is perhaps one of the most critical issues dominating discussions on the agendas of states across the African continent. This scourge is neither new nor unique to the African continent. Over the past few decades, however, it has become an increasingly public issue across states in Africa. The pervasiveness of violence against women and girls has seen some states label the scourge a national crisis warranting immediate redress. It can be considered as one of the main challenges to the realisation of womens rights in Africa.

Criminal justice systems in Africa have a fundamental role to play in the eradication of violence against women. Disheartening, however, progress has been extremely slow as far as holding perpetrators of such violence to account is concerned. A significant number of cases, if at all reported, hardly make it through the criminal justice system. All considered, it is indisputable that violence against women and girls on the African continent has reached alarming levels. It is equally irrefutable that criminal justice responses are generally wanting. But equally undeniable is the fact that most African states have made multiple reforms to national laws. Many have also committed themselves to international obligations by way of ratification of treaties relevant to addressing the scourge of violence against women and girls. Even so, these strides have not generally translated into better criminal accountability across justice systems in Africa. The challenges and prospects of criminal justice for women and girls in Africa, despite these reforms, have hardly been the subject of scholarly discussion.

The two edited volumes of this publication fill in this scholarly gap. They echo the provisions of article 4 of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Maputo Protocol) that requires States parties to adopt and enforce laws, including punishing perpetrators, to ensure the elimination of violence against women. The contributions present a comprehensive and rigorous overview of the salient features and major developments in Africas criminal justice systems in as far as justice for women is concerned, while also focussing on vulnerable women. It offers a unique insight into the practical challenges of advancing justice for women in cases of violence in the different regions in Africa.

As someone who has been engaged on womens rights on the continent, including on the issue of violence against women, I believe that the publication of these two volumes is timely and that the recommendations therein, if implemented, can ensure more accountability for violence against women in the criminal justice systems of African countries.