NOTING that women’s rights and women’s essential role in development, have been reaffirmed in the United Nations Plans of Action on the Environment and Development in 1992, on Human Rights in 1993, on Population and Development in 1994 and on Social Development in 1995; RECALLING ALSO United Nations Security Council’s Resolution1325 (2000) on the role of Women in promoting peace and security; REAFFIRMING the principle of promoting gender equality as enshrined in the Constitutive Act of the African Union as well as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, relevant Declarations, Resolutions and Decisions, which underline the commitment of the African States to ensure the full participation of African women as equal partners in Africa’s development; FURTHER NOTING that the African Platform for Action and the Dakar Declaration of 1994 and the Beijing Platform for Action of 1995 call on all Member States of the United Nations, which have made a solemn commitment to implement them, to take concrete steps to give greater attention to the human rights of women in order to eliminate all forms of discrimination and of gender-based violence against women; RECOGNISING the crucial role of women in the preservation of African values based on the principles of equality, peace, freedom, dignity, justice, solidarity and democracy; BEARING IN MIND related Resolutions, Declarations, Recommendations, Decisions, Conventions and other Regional and SubRegional Instruments aimed at eliminating all forms of discrimination and at promoting equality between women and men; CONCERNED that despite the ratification of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other international human rights instruments by the majority of States Parties, and their solemn commitment to eliminate all forms of discrimination and harmful practices against women, women in Africa still continue to be victims of Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa 5