Communication 341/07 - Equality Now v Ethiopia Cassation Bench of the Federal Supreme Court in January 2006. The complainant contends that this amounts to violation of the victim's rights guaranteed under Articles 3, 4, 5, 6, 7(l)(a) and 18(3) of the Charter. By the same acts and omissions, the Respondent State also sanctioned a climate that is conducive to violence and discrimination against girls and women which also amounts to violation of the stated rights including Article 2 of the Charter. 93. Furthermore, at the time of the impugned events, the law absolved the perpetrator from prosecution for rape if he subsequently married his victim. The Complainant contends that this regularised the traditional practices of abduction, rape and forced marriage. The law also amounted to violation of the right of rape victims to equal protection of the law. Despite repeal of this law in 2005 and campaigns by non governmental organisations, the practice of abduction, rape and forced marriage thrives to date. 94. The Complainants also maintains that by failing to protect the victim from violations of her rights guaranteed under the Charter, the Respondent State failed to eliminate discrimination against women which include violence against women. The Respondent State also propagated the message to the general public that girls and women can be abducted, raped, and forced into marriage with impunity. They contend that this is contrary to State's obligations and amounts to violation of several other rights guaranteed under other international human rights instruments1, including Articles 4, 5 and 6 of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women (Women's Protocol) in Africa, which the Respondent State has signed. 95. In terms of remedies, the Complainant reiterates the prayers at paragraph 15 above. Regarding compensation, the Complainant submits that the sum of between $250,000 -S500,000 should be awarded for economically assessable damage, and for the moral, material, and other forms of harm suffered as a result of the violations. The Complainant also requests the Charities and Societies Proclamation should be repealed so that charities are allowed to work without State interference except as it may concern public benefit. Additionally/ the Respondent State should be required to periodically account to the Commission on implementation of the recommendations. Lastly, the Complainant prays that the Respondent State should be requested to ratify, domesticate and implement the Women's Protocol. 11 In this regard the Complainants cites: Articles 3, 21(1) and (2) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (Children's Charter); Articles 5,15(1) and 16(b) of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); CEDAW General Recommendation No. 19 on Violence against women; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Arts. 26 and 23(3); United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) General Comment No 28on equality of rights between men and women; Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Art. 24(3); Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) General Comment No. 4 on adolescent health and development