COMMENT Lea Mwambene and Roberta Mgidlana In this short note we ask: What are the challenges of criminalizing ukuthwala in the protection of girls affected by the practice? Ukuthwala is a ‘romantic mock abduction’ of an unmarried woman by a man who intended to marry her.[1]The intention is to force the girl’s family to enter…
Category: Human Rights
COMMENT Merlin Mitschker 19 March 2021 Climate change affects everyone and everything, including human beings. Throughout the world, we can see various developments and the forms of climate change materialization differ. In some affected territories, the accumulated precipitation is falling, and the land is becoming too dry to till. Therefore, crops will wither rising. Sea…
ANALYSIS Melanie Schwarzfischer 19 February 2021 In Zambia every citizen over the age of eighteen years has the right to vote, unless he or she is explicitly disqualified by Parliament (Article 75 (1) of the Constitution). However, not every citizen has equal opportunities to conduct their votes. Especially people with disabilities are disadvantaged because of…
COMMENT Lisa Strube 6 November 2020 Nowadays, it is undisputed that tourism does not only bring positive aspects. Specifically in countries of the Global South, the tourism sector often hides a high potential for conflicts. Imbalanced power relations between the individual actors are the dark side of the travel industry and often lead to human…
ANALYSIS JOAN SMARTS MUKISA 30 October 2020 Matrimonial property is defined as property jointly acquired during the subsistence of a marriage[1]. The nature of contribution can be direct (monetary) or indirect through offering domestic services.[2] Usually the scope of matrimonial property is already existing property and not future property. This is probably why the legal…
OPINION Dr Olivia Kokushubila Lwabukuna 29 October 2020 The 2020 Elections actually started in 2015 when the current longest ruling party in sub-Saharan Africa, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) presidential candidate, John Pombe Magufuli got elected in one of the most contested elections in Tanzania. At the time and to a large extent now, Magufuli presented…
ANALYSIS Freda Louwes 5 October 2020 The Sustainable Development Goal 5.3 promotes the elimination of all harmful practices, such as child marriage, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation (United Nations 2020). Still, child marriage remains a prevalent global issue. Child marriage refers to any marriage in which at least one of the two…
COMMENT Isabelle Zundel 30 September 2020 It is a major challenge to introduce the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was way more than an American jurist. She was the second woman serving the Supreme Court. She is an idol for humans all over the world through her determined, lifelong campaign for women’s rights. Her death…
COMMENT Cecilia Ngaiza 30 August 2020 Reading through the preamble to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 1981 (hereinafter referred to as the “Charter”) one may gather an opinion that, peoples’ rights entrenched in the Charter were primarily designed to emphasise on total independence and development of the then colonised African societies. Such…
Prof. Dr Thoko Kaime 24 June 2020 The Chair of African Legal Studies expresses deep solidarity with the protests against structural racism and its daily manifestations in the USA, in Germany and elsewhere around the world. We firmly support the struggles for justice, equality and the protection of the rights of black people and people…