Maputo Protocol Article 2: Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
What it does
Article 2 is Maputo's core obligations article. It converts the definitions in Article 1 into actual state duty. It's the direct counterpart to CEDAW's Article 2, which does the same job internationally. Both articles require states to legislate discrimination out of existence rather than simply declare it wrong.
What it states
Article 2(1) requires States Parties to combat discrimination through five specific actions:
Write the principle of equality between women and men into national constitutions and legislation, if not already present
Enact and enforce laws prohibiting discrimination, particularly harmful practices that endanger women's health and wellbeing
Integrate a gender perspective into policy, legislation, and development planning across every sector
Take corrective and positive action wherever discrimination against women persists in law or in fact
Support local, national, regional, and continental initiatives working to eradicate discrimination
Article 2(2) goes further, requiring states to actively modify social and cultural patterns of conduct through public education and communication strategies, specifically to eliminate practices rooted in the idea that either sex is inherently superior or inferior, or in stereotyped gender roles.
Use as a vehicle for new protections
The structural difference from CEDAW's Article 2 is where the obligation reaches. CEDAW's Article 2 stops at law and policy; legislative repeal, constitutional guarantees, institutional mechanisms. Maputo's Article 2(2) explicitly extends the obligation into culture itself: states aren't just required to change what's legal, they're required to actively work to change what's socially normalized, through education and communication strategy. That's a materially bigger ask, and it's why Article 2 functions as the hinge between Maputo's legal provisions and its later cultural ones. Article 5's elimination of harmful practices and Article 17's "positive cultural context" both draw their authority back to this obligation.
Reservations
This is the sharpest contrast point with CEDAW. CEDAW's Article 2 is one of the most heavily reserved provisions in that entire treaty. A number of states have entered reservations specifically because they consider it incompatible with religious or personal-status law. Maputo's Article 2, by contrast, draws no reservations from any State Party, including the ones with reservations elsewhere on the treaty (South Africa on Articles 6(h) and 31; Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda on Article 14; Egypt, Libya, and Zambia on Article 7). States objecting to Maputo's substance object to specific applications such as marriage registration, abortion access and divorce procedure, not to the general obligation to eliminate discrimination itself.