ISHR
On 17 October 2025, ahead of the 85th ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, civil society organisations expressed their concerns about the continual shrinking of civic space.
Since the last NGO forum of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African human rights defenders agreed that the threats to civic space were of increasing concern.
While confirming the persistence of restrictions on freedoms of expression, of association, and assembly, panellists noted that women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are experiencing these same threats in specific and particular ways due to their gender.
As women defenders, Salome Nduta, Executive Director, Kenya WHRDs Hub revealed that women human rights defenders are doubly victims of restrictions on civic space: as citizens defending human rights on one hand and as women on the other. She confirmed that in different countries of the continent, women human rights defenders are also victims of arbitrary arrests, attacks, harassment, including in digital spaces.
Giving the examples of women defenders working on specific rights, such as environmental rights and gender orientation, Brenda Kugonza, Executive Director of the WHRD Network Uganda, shared the experience of Ugandan women human rights defenders who also experience intimidation, public shame, and backlash during the legitimate execution of their work.
The panellists acknowledged that the severity of restrictions leads organisations such as CIVICUS to develop a tracker to assess the effectiveness of the civic space in African countries. Highlighting women human rights defenders’ specific vulnerabilities, Salome Nduta invited to the development of a women-oriented tracker to assess women defenders’ access to civic space, stressing that ‘protecting women’s rights is not charity, it is justice’.
The NGO Forum, ahead of the 85th ACHPR’s session in Banjul, held several panel discussions on the AU 2025 theme 'Reparations: Justice for Africans and People of African Descent' with different focuses, including the regional and UN standards on reparations, economic justice, as well as discrimination in Africa based on work and descent.
The UN General Assembly’s principal human rights committee—the Third Committee—has kicked off its deliberations. This year’s session will run for 7 weeks from 3 October to 21 November 2025. The Committee will be chaired by the Permanent Representative of Thailand. We present some key issues on the agenda below.
The 60th session of the UN Human Rights Council will consider issues including acts of intimidation and reprisals for cooperation with the UN, systemic racism, environment and climate justice, and the rights of Indigenous Peoples and people of African descent. It will also present an opportunity to address grave human rights situations in States including Afghanistan, Burundi, China, Israel/oPt, Nicaragua, Russia, Sudan and Venezuela, and many others. Here's an overview of some of the key issues on the agenda.
