(2017) 1 African Human Rights Yearbook 53 adopted the intersectional approach which considered all factors about the author that had impeded the realisation of her right. That the international human rights system has interpreted and applied equality and non-discrimination using a substantive lens shows what is possible in giving meaning to equality and for this reason provides a useful yardstick with which to look at this right within the African context. 6 THE APPLICATION OF EQUALITY AND NONDISCRIMINATION IN THE AFRICAN UNION’S HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM In light of the various ways outlined above that show how substantive equality has been incorporated and interpreted in international human rights systems, this section turns to the African Union’s human rights system in order to establish whether there has been a recognition and acceptance of substantive equality and if so how it has been assimilated and applied. The section looks at the various instruments, processes and mechanisms that set or develop norms within the African Union’s human rights system. In the African context, the equality guarantees are expressed within the two main treaties, namely, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (African Charter) and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (African Women’s Rights Protocol). In the African Charter, the provisions relevant to equality are found in articles 2 and 3 and 18(3). As with the earlier treaties under international law, the formulation of the guarantee to equality in article 3 is also in a general open textured manner without any expansion. Goldblatt and Fredman’s have posited that the inclusion of positive duties on states to ensure equality is in accordance with substantive equality. Flowing from this argument, it could be that by virtue of the obligation in article 1 which requires states parties to the African Charter to ‘undertake to adopt legislative or other measures to give effect’ to rights accords with a substantive equality approach. Article 18(3) is a provision aimed at addressing discrimination against women. That the provision calls on states to ‘ensure the elimination of every discrimination against women and also ensure the protection of the rights of the woman and the child as stipulated in international declarations and conventions’ can be viewed as a call to not only pay attention to inequalities that are overt but to take a holistic approach. As Ngwena points out, an intention by the drafters to give a generous interpretation to equality and nondiscrimination under the African Charter can also be inferred from the fact that article 18(3) implicitly appeals to other international treaties as one of the yardsticks for determining whether the state has complied with its nondiscrimination obligations.60 60 C Ngwena ‘Sexual health and human rights in Africa’ http://www.ichrp.org/files/ papers/185/140_Ngwena_Africa_2011.pdf (accessed 1 July 2017).