Akia becomes the first Ugandan to achieve this feat and she has already set out six priority areas during her term.
“The world is experiencing a tremendous decline in the respect of girls and women’s rights and accountability for the rights violations/abuses that they suffer,” she says.
“Against this backdrop, I am determined to effectively utilize my extensive legal and research work experience on a broad range of areas of international law to make a meaningful contribution to the execution of the mandate of the CEDAW committee.”
From a Ugandan perspective, Akia plans to use this opportunity to bring the voices and lived realities of actual women impacted by different human rights abuses, to the committee to ensure that their voices take center stage in the work of the CEDAW and are strongly reflected in the recommendations and decisions of the CEDAW Committee.
“This will help ensure that recommendations or decisions made meet their specific human and justice needs. I also hope to use my legal and research skills to work closely with member states, UN committees, civil society, private sector, and all key stakeholders to take urgent action,” she says.
“Firstly, the action has to address impacts of climate change on women and girls, who because of historical gender inequalities are disproportionately impacted by climate change and secondly, strengthen accountability for different rights abuses women and girls face during peace, conflict, post-conflict, and humanitarian situations.”
On a global scale, she plans to use her position to bring the voices and lived realities of the women impacted by human rights violations and international crimes to the CEDAW Committee to ensure that their voices, including their specific human rights and justice needs take center stage in the work of the CEDAW Committee.
“This will ensure that their voices and lived realities are effectively reflected in the recommendations and decisions made by the CEDAW Committee,” she says.
Also based on her firsthand experience working on environment and climate change in Uganda, she will pursue the CEDAW Committee’s work to support member states to take urgent action to implement their commitments to combat and address environmental degradation and climate change and its impacts on vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as women, women with disabilities, migrants, and refugees.
“This is because women and girls exacerbated by historical gender inequalities, bear the unequal responsibility to care for their households, including securing food, energy sources for cooking and lighting, and water that increases their risk and vulnerability to the impacts of environment degradation and climate change,” she adds.
Akia also plans to work closely with member states of the CEDAW Convention to strengthen accountability and oversight mechanisms to monitor and strengthen the implementation of the CEDAW Convention. She further intends to pursue the CEDAW Committee’s work to support member states to reform or develop gender sensitive legislation, policies, budgetary allocations, and strategies that are resilient to crises, including pandemics and meet the unique human rights and justice needs of women during crises.
While strengthening collaboration among treaty bodies, she intends to develop consistent standards of protection of women and girls’ rights and establish consistent jurisprudence on women and girls’ rights drawn from specific expertise of the treaty bodies.
Lastly, Akia intends to support global efforts to strengthen accountability for human rights violations faced by women during peace, conflict, post-conflict, and humanitarian situations to hold perpetrators accountable.
“This is because accountability plays a critical role in bringing lasting peace, stability, and development, preventing future rights abuses against women, and ensuring that women are free from violence and discrimination,” she says.
WHAT DRIVES AKIA?
The human rights lawyer is passionate about using her legal and research skills and competence in international human rights and international criminal law to change abusive and discriminatory laws and policies while at the same time promote girls and women’s rights.
Akia has extensive legal and research experience leading and managing human rights projects, including fact-finding field and desktop research, investigations, monitoring, and analysis into issues and questions of international human rights; girls and women’s rights; climate change; humanitarian law; transitional justice; international law; and international criminal law. She has documented rights violations against women and girls across Africa.
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