For centuries, discrimination based on work and descent across Africa went unrecorded, unrecognised, and ignored. So our communities started recording it themselves.
Rights Experts gathered evidence, documented lived realities, and carried their stories into regional advocacy spaces - until the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights could no longer look away.
The result: the first-ever regional resolution on Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent. A formal acknowledgement, in the language of international law, that this discrimination exists and demands a response. A regional study is now underway.
Centuries of silence - broken by the people who lived it.
TIP's Africa engagement is led by Queen Bisseng, our UN Programme Specialist for Africa, who works with rights defenders and experts across the continent to advance recognition and protection for communities discriminated on work and descent - at regional mechanisms like the ACHPR and at the United Nations.