Improving the rights of women all over the world

Text: Miriam Hoffmeyer

Brenda Akia was still at primary school when horrific scenes from the television news were etched deeply on her memory: images of corpses washed into Lake Victoria during the Rwandan genocide. Images of atrocities committed by Joseph Kony’s “Lord’s Resistance Army” in northern Uganda. As a teenager, she was outraged by the fact that the practice of child marriage and early pregnancies continued to overshadow many girls’ lives. The fight for human and women’s rights became the central issue in her life. “I wanted to be able to help bring about justice,” says Brenda Akia. She began studying law, with a special focus on human rights, at Makerere University in Kampala and then completed the DAAD-funded postgraduate course “Transnational Criminal Justice and Crime Prevention – An International and African Perspective” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. “That was a unique opportunity for me,” she recalls. “During the one-year course in 2011 I learnt exactly what I needed to be able to really make a difference in the area of human rights and international criminal law.” As a legal expert, she supported the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Crim­inal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, and later the Appeals Chamber at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Akia drew on these experiences when writing her doctoral thesis on the legal obstacles to prosecuting conflict-related sexual violence crimes. “Ending impunity for serious violations of human rights is vital in order to bring about peace and sustainable development,” says Brenda Akia, who exudes huge optimism despite all the glo­bal crises.

In 2022, the mother of two was elected to the committee that monitors implementation of the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). As part of the CEDAW Committee she has been the country rapporteur for Rwanda, Niger and Benin and is the alternative rapporteur for the ­consequences and impacts of climate change, among other things. Akia explains that numerous laws have been amended and discriminatory provisions removed thanks to the women’s rights convention: “As a result, the daily lives of women all over the world have improved. Being able to influence important questions of women’s rights within a multilateral system is a unique experience.” —

Read our interview with Dr Brenda Akia