Consultancy to Develop Model Guide and Guidelines for WHRDs

A. Background

Equality Now, founded in 1992, is an international human rights organization that works to achieve legal and systemic change that addresses violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world, with a focus on ending sexual violence, harmful practices, trafficking for sexual exploitation, and achieving legal equality. Combining grassroots activism with international, regional and national legal advocacy. Equality Now’s approach links high level policy advocacy and global activism with support and legal advice to grassroots partners and networks working on specific cases of women and girls in order to promote change at all levels.

Equality Now is also a founding member and the Secretariat of the SOAWR Coalition. Founded in 2004, SOAWR is a regional network of 63 national, regional, and international civil society organizations based in 32 African countries. The primary area of focus for SOAWR has been advocacy for African States to urgently sign, ratify, domesticate and implement the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo Protocol).

B. About the Spotlight Initiative

The Spotlight Initiative is a global partnership between the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls. The Spotlight Initiative Africa Regional Program aims to address regional bottlenecks and support regional commitments towards Ending Violence against Women and Girls (EVAWG) including strengthening existing strategies and initiatives. The project contributes towards the achievements of gender equality and women’s empowerment as a precondition and is a driver for the achievement of the African Union Agenda 2063 Goal 17, and Sustainable Development Goal 5, and prioritizes strengthening existing strategies and initiatives, such as the AU Gender Strategy, the Gender Observatory, the AU Campaign to end Child Marriage and the AU Saleema Initiative on the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

The Spotlight Initiative adopts a strategy of harnessing the respective strengths of multi-sectoral and multilevel partnerships which will support the acceleration of transformative change. This will be achieved through working with individual member states, the African Union (AU), the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and the Pan-African Women Organization.

C. Rationale for the development of Model Guide and Guidelines for establishing systems/ protocols to support and protect the rights of Women's Rights and Human Rights Defenders

Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) are exposed to gender-based violence because they are women, sometimes experiencing violence within their own movements and organizations or at the hands of family or the communities which they are part of. Attacks against WHRDs often take gender-specific forms, including sexist and misogynistic verbal abuse, harassment and sexual abuse. Generally, WHRDs are subjected to threats, intimidation, judicial harassment, arbitrary detention and prosecution, online attacks, sexual violence, physical violence and attacks
directed at their loved ones.

Further, there are high numbers of reported extrajudicial killings of WHRDs. Many of these killings are preceded by direct or indirect threats, which are often intended to intimidate, silence and stop them from carrying out their work. Nationally disaggregated statistics on the number of human rights defenders killed each year are limited, with these statistics only being reported globally and regionally. For instance, in the period from 1 January 2019 to 30 June 2020 alone, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders sent Communications to 10 Member States on the killing of 100 human rights defenders, including 17 women human rights defenders. Moreover, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) observed that from 2015 to 2019, human rights defenders including WHRDs have been killed in at least 64 countries.

There is a need to provide human rights defenders with a conducive environment to enable them to carry out their activities without fear of acts of violence, threat, intimidation, reprisal, discrimination, oppression and harassment from State and non-State actors.

States have an obligation to protect WHRDs from violation. The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders establishes that States “shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration.”

Despite the obligation on States to undertake legislative, administrative, budgetary and other measures to protect WHRDs, states have failed to uphold their mandate to protect WHRDs leading to the high rates of violence among WHRDs.

Nonetheless, other regional and continental political and economic communities have adopted protection mechanisms for HRDs as a whole, by developing specific legislation and creating bodies with the mandate to protect WHRDs which can similarly be adopted in Africa in order to enforce the promotion and protection of the rights of WHRDs. These are considered best practices given they provide avenues for legitimizing the work of HRDs and moreover, provide protection mechanisms for them to ensure they are not subjected to threats, intimidation, violence among other unjustified violations.

There is a further need to assess the existence of these best practices, interrogate their effectiveness and see how the can be adopted by the target countries in Africa which are: Botswana, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Madagascar, Morocco, Niger, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan, to enhance the promotion and protection of the rights of WHRDs.

D. About the Model Guide and Guidelines for Protection of WHRDs

Equality Now in partnership with UN Women seeks to review and assess the existing protocols and systems that aim to promote and protect the rights of WHRDs, and subsequently use this assessment to develop a model guide and guidelines that can be adopted by the target countries.

The Model Guide and guidelines will thus provide information and guidance on the best systems and protocols on protection of WHRDs and how they can be adopted by the target countries. In particular, the Model Guide and the assessment that it is based on will emphasise on the responsibility of the State to ensure WHRDs are protected from VAW including extrajudicial killings and prosecutions.

E. Objectives of the Model Guide

Overall Objective
The overall objective of the Model Guide is to provide the recommended framework and guidelines for establishing effective systems and protocols to enhance the protection of WHRDs n Africa.

Specific Objectives

Enhance the understanding of international and regional obligations on the protection of WHRDs from violence;

Analyze the existing good practices on the protection of WHRDs globally;

Scrutinize the repressive laws that limit the human rights and fundamental freedoms of WHRDs.

Develop a Model Guide and Guidelines for States to encourage and aid the establishment of protocols and systems for the protection of WHRDs as provided under international and regional instruments.

Develop national and regional advocacy strategies that can be adopted to motivate state parties to adopt the Model Guide and Guidelines to establish national systems and protocols to protect WHRDs;

F. Scope of Work and Deliverables

The Consultant(s) shall be required to do the following in the development of the Model Guide
and Guidelines:

Develop an Inception Report setting out the conceptual framework to be used for the development of the Model Guide and Guidelines, the methodology and a detailed work plan with defined timelines.

Develop the Model Guide and Guidelines of not more than 50,000 words.

Attend consultative and feedback meetings with Equality Now and UN Women as may be necessary.

Submit a first draft of the Model Guide and Guidelines for review and feedback to Equality Now, UN Women and relevant stakeholders, and incorporate this into a revised version for validation.

Support a virtual consultative and validation meeting on the Model Guide and Guidelines and thereafter submit a final version of the Model Guide and Guidelines, incorporating feedback from the validation process. The validation meeting is tentatively set for the last week of April 2022.

Attend the launch and adoption of the Model Guide and Guidelines. The Regional Meeting is tentatively set for the first week of June 2022.

Train civil society organizations on the use of the Model Guide and Guidelines during a
virtual convening.

Time Allocation: The consultancy will be carried out within a period of not more than 3 months with a timeline as follows:

Inception report - 15 days from date of contract.
Development of Model Guide and Guidelines - 30 days from date of submission of inception report.
Validation and finalizing of the Model Guide and Guidelines - 15 days from date of receipt of feedback from Equality Now, UN Women and other relevant stakeholders.

G. Competencies

The following are the required expertise and qualification of the consultant (s):

A postgraduate degree or other advanced university degrees (a minimum of a master’s degree or equivalent) in law or social sciences, gender studies, development studies or any other relevant field;

At least seven (7) years of professional experience in legal/ capacity building, policy research and analysis related to international human rights law or gender equality in Africa. (Mandatory for this consultancy);

Demonstrably strong working knowledge and understanding of global and regional human rights and women’s rights instruments, including CEDAW, BPfA, AU gender strategy, and Maputo Protocol. Additionally, the consultant(s) must have demonstrable knowledge of the situation of human rights defenders in Africa;

Experience in developing model guides, guidelines, modules, tools covering international human rights law or gender equality;

Prior working experience on human rights and gender equality and demonstrable experience working with global and regional human rights mechanisms and other partners, including African Union and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and continental women’s rights movements, is an added advantage; and

Demonstrable experience working in development programs especially in the area of capacity enhancement, human rights education and awareness-raising.

Submission Procedure
Qualified and interested candidates are requested to apply either as a team or individually by emailing the following application materials to equalitynownairobi@equalitynow.org, with a copy to mogeto@equalitynow.org with the subject “Consultancy: Model Guideline on the Protection of Women Human Rights Defenders in Africa.”

Curriculum Vitae of the applicant(s) indicating their educational backgrounds and professional qualifications, including all relevant experience as well as contact information (email and phone number)

Three (3) professional references (including former clients) that can attest to past consulting experience, past curriculum design experience, and past legal/ policy analysis experience in the field of human rights.
Work plan/ timeline and financial proposal.

Please note that applications shall be received via email only. The application deadline is 19th
January 2021. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Please note that only shortlisted
applicants will be contacted.

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