A red carpet, a dancing troupe and water-tight security – the kind usually reserved for high-level state events – welcomed attendees to the opening of the fourth African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty, which took place in Ghana’s Parliament earlier this month.
The three-day event brought together lawmakers and conservative and Christian religious leaders from across the continent, as well as members of far-right and Christian groups in the Global North. They were there, organisers hoped, to advance a new African Charter on the Protection of the Family, Sovereignty, and Religious and Cultural Values.
The charter would encourage governments to withdraw from international treaties or funding agreements that promote “the LGBT agenda”, abortion, and sex education. Critics warn it could decimate women’s rights and sexual and reproductive health efforts, and entrench anti-LGBTQ laws across the continent.
The conference came less than a week after Ghana’s parliament voted to pass one of Africa’s most draconian anti-LGBTQ bills, which – if signed into law – will make identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer punishable by up to three years in prison.
Inside the event, the charter’s supporters weaponised pan-Africanism and framed ‘family values’ – intended to mean those of a family unit formed by a cis man and a cis woman – as a necessary defence of African sovereignty. Proponents of so-called African ‘family values’ have long portrayed the issue as a religious and moral concern, but are increasingly recasting it as part of Africa’s fight against neo-colonialism.
Christian speakers advocating for the charter referenced former Ghanaian president and revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah, whose image could also be seen on an erected backdrop, along with images of other pan-African heroes. By the time Ghana’s Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, took his turn, he was waving White Malice, historian Susan Collins’ book detailing US efforts to undermine African independence, as though it were a bible.
“That is what is going to build your faith to brace yourself to fight the battle we are engaged in to ensure that true families, sovereignty and values of Africa are entrenched on our continent,” Bagbin declared.
Meanwhile, outside, a coalition of human rights organisations acting as RHION (Refusing Harm In Our Name) demonstrated their opposition to the proposal. Protesters marched for five kilometres through Accra, Ghana’s capital, brandishing placards and imagery that challenged the narrow imaginings of the African family being asserted within the Parliament. “African family has always made room” was the resounding message.
“We are of the view that this charter is meant to oppress women,” a convener of the coalition, Abdul Razak Mohammed Shamsu-Deen, told openDemocracy. “We are rejecting the one-type definition of African families being driven by these Western-influenced people,” Shamsu-Deen said.
Despite the protest, 18 of the 20 lawmakers present voted in favour of the charter.
Only South Africa and Mozambique abstained. South Africa said the draft was at odds with its constitution, citing concerns over gender discrimination and its anti-abortion stance, while Mozambique said it could not commit to adopting the treaty due to legislative scheduling challenges and logistical constraints.
Criticising the charter’s fixation with gender, Zandile Majosi, South Africa’s National Assembly House Chairperson on International Relations, told openDemocracy: “This is not what we believe in South Africa. We protect your rights as a human being. We do not protect your rights because you are a certain gender or sexuality.”
Inside the event
As the conference wore on, familiar agendas emerged.
In previous years, the event has been endorsed by Family Watch International, a US Christian organisation designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre. While the group said it chose not to attend this year, its influence could still be seen in the rhetoric espoused by other attendees.
One target was comprehensive sexuality education, a curriculum that aims to teach children and young people about the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social aspects of sexuality, and promotes substantive and non-judgemental discussions on sex, sexuality, relationships and consent.
Delegates claimed, without evidence, that this kind of education sexualises children.
The executive director of the Dutch organisation Christian Council International, Henk Jan van Schothorst, accused the EU and the United Nations Population Fund of introducing comprehensive sexuality education, as well as sexual and reproductive health and rights, to the African continent as part of a left-leaning agenda.
“Brussels [the EU] should not teach you what to do. You can think for yourselves,” Schothorst told openDemocracy on the sidelines of the conference.
Elsewhere, Ugandan legislator Sarah Opendi, one of the conference’s founding members, used her speech to dismiss online accusations that the conference had been funded by organisations and individuals in the Global North. Opendi said Ghana had covered the event’s costs, with attendees paying for their own flight and board. Ghana’s deputy speaker, Andrew Asiamah Amoako, declined to comment on how much Ghana had spent.
What’s in the draft?
While the charter includes provisions for economic, food and natural resource sovereignty, one of its strongest themes is eliminating avenues for sexual and reproductive health rights and progressive gender ideologies.
The draft raises concerns over the Maputo Plan of Action – an African Union framework to improve the sexual and reproductive rights and health of women and girls across the continent by 2030 – and the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. Both agreements, it says, undermine African family values.
It also features worrying traces of vaccine hesitancy, with a push to give Africans the right to reject vaccinations. The Human Papillomavirus vaccine, which protects against most strains of cervical cancers, as well as some other cancers, is referenced with suggestions that there are “simple alternatives” like antibiotics.
Amendments approved at the conference included a move to formally define marriage as being between a man and one or more women; a need to enforce stronger tech regulation to strengthen tech sovereignty (details on this were scarce, with legislators likely to flesh out the proposal in a new section of the charter in the coming months); and a proposal to protect abortion exemptions, such as in cases of rape, in member countries.
The conference also adopted recommendations to institutionalise inter-parliamentary engagements on family, sovereignty and values, potentially embedding its agenda in member states through parliamentary caucuses and annual budget allocations.
What next?
As delegates considered amendments on the final day, cracks began to appear. There was some pushback from Liberia and South Africa, although the former eventually voted in favour of the agreement.
Liberian legislator Emmanuel Dahn was upset with the charter’s patriarchal leanings after an amendment was passed affirming polygyny, in which a man can have multiple wives. Dahn felt the amendment reduced women to property, telling openDemocracy: “It is offensive to women. It is offensive to my mother. It is offensive to my sisters and my girl child. It is offensive to all.”
Concern also came from expert speakers. Dr Angela Dwamena-Aboagye, a lawyer and gender rights advocate, told delegates the charter needed robust protections for women. Legislators, however, later failed to address her concerns when amendments were introduced.
“The charter appears to avoid incorporation of critical, well-documented issues of well-known infractions to women, girls and persons with disabilities,” Dwamena-Aboagye said.
Sarah Shaw, MSI Reproductive Choices’ associate director of advocacy, flagged similar concerns to openDemocracy, noting that the “charter will strike at the heart of the rights framework that has protected women and marginalised communities across Africa for decades, directly undermining the Maputo Protocol.”
But with most states having voted in favour of the charter, it will now be revised to incorporate amendments agreed upon at the conference. Organisers hope to finalise the draft by the next African Union summit in February 2027 – when Ghanaian president John Mahama will officially take over as the union’s chair – so it can be formally considered by speakers of Parliament from supporting nations. The charter does not require unanimous approval from member states.
Meanwhile, rights groups such as RHION are likely to ramp up resistance to the proposal. They will find allies in some African legislators, with South Africa’s Majosi saying that she and her Parliament will continue engaging on the charter and resisting the agenda of the conference, which is due to be held in Burkina Faso next year.
“Saying we oppose the charter doesn’t make us any less African,” Majosi said. “We believe we are going to persuade our fellow brothers and sisters, and we will win this war at the end of the day.”
