Closing the gap in international human rights law: lessons from three regional human rights systems on legal standards and practices regarding violence against women 2015, para. 25
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The limited engagement of the communications procedure in the protection of women's rights is a source of concern. Some reasons for the limited engagement include: the lack of, or limited, access to justice for women at the national levels, resulting in perceptions of similar weaknesses in the African regional system; the lack of knowledge on how to use the system; the inaccessibility of the communication system owing to the requirement in article 56 (5) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights regarding the exhaustion of local remedies before submitting allegations to the Commission; the relatively small number of women's rights organizations that interact with the regional human rights system; and the inadequacy of the provisions on women's rights in the Charter, which created barriers to using the regional system. The latter argument is now flawed, considering that the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa has been in force for almost a decade, yet usage of the procedure is still limited.
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Non-negotiated soft law
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Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences