Thematic Areas

Countering Anti-Rights Actors (CARA)

We prioritise the enhancement of feminist and social justice movements’ capacity to identify, challenge, and resist anti-rights actors and agendas that threaten women’s rights, sexual rights, and broader human rights protections across Africa. Through strategic litigation, legal advocacy, movement-building, research, and knowledge production, we work to expose and disrupt efforts to roll back gender equality, bodily autonomy, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and protections for sexual and gender minorities.

Anti-rights actors increasingly use law, litigation, public institutions, and cultural, religious, and political narratives to undermine human rights systems, restrict civic space, and weaken accountability. CARA responds by strengthening collective resistance, generating critical legal analysis, and supporting collaborative ‘seizing and shielding’ strategies that both advance rights and protect existing gains.

Our work focuses on:

• Challenging anti-rights lawfare and strategic litigation.
• Defending civic space and protecting human rights defenders.
• Countering efforts to weaken human rights institutions and judicial independence.
• Exposing the influence of transnational anti-rights networks on African legal and policy processes.
• Resisting attacks on women’s rights, sexual rights, and broader human rights protections across Africa.
• Producing legal analysis and knowledge products that expose distortions of human rights discourse and support effective legal mobilisation.
• Building collaborative ‘seizing and shielding’ strategies to advance rights while protecting existing gains.