Uncovering Reality: Excavating Women's Rights in African Family Law

This article identifies the specific issues which affect African women in the sphere of marriage and the family relations within the framework of Articles 15 and 16 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The article first elaborates and puts in context concepts such as family, marriage, rights, equality and jusutice and then provies an overview of the plurality of laws which have emanated mainly from colonialism. The authors then highlight issues specifically relevant to women in the context of customary law and analyze them in terms of CEDAW and the more general standard of women's interests and justice. [Descriptors: Marriage, International - Africa]