Cameroon: Women's Bargain for Better Status

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The Post (Buea)

10 October 2008
Posted to the web 10 October 2008

Ernest Sumelong

The cry for a better status for women has never been more urgent than recently, especially in Cameroon.

Between 2000 and 2008, women groups, NGOs and other civil society activists have initiated a flurry of sensitisation campaigns, workshops and other advocacy actions intended to call attention and build awareness on abuses on women and on the need for them to rise above their trodden status.

In spite of the robust fight, the environment is yet to be favourable for greater opportunities, positive perception and better treatment of women, to accord them the status the advocate for or deserve.

A recent report by the Southwest Provincial Technical Group for the fight against HIV/AIDS, PTG, shows that more girls in the Province are infected with the HIV virus than boys. The report states that besides being considered the weaker sex, and unable to determine much about their sexual life, women are more vulnerable to acts of violence, rape and other social abuses.

The Social Welfare Centre of the Province, on its part, disclosed that at the start of each school year, many girls do not go back to school due to teenage pregnancies and related complications.

According to the African News Agency, AFROL News, violations of women's rights escalate the rate of HIV infections throughout the continent. Sexual oppression combined with a high biological receptiveness of viral transmission, put women at risk. As a consequence, the violence against women threatens to destroy whole communities.

In Bamenda, recently, a woman was severely battered by the concubine for testing HIV sero-positive. As reported by Cameroon's national bilingual daily, Cameroon Tribune, "Miss E. (names withheld) was harked on the forehead, chest and knees after an estimated three-hour confrontation in their remote moated hut at the Cow Street neighbourhood in Bamenda.

"E. and Paddy often terrify the neighbourhood with violence, especially at night," our source said. "E. is often beaten either because she fails to provide food, resents Paddy's nocturnal activities with sex workers or refuses sex. She often sheds blood; it's a routine," our source noted," the report reads.

The report tells the pathetic story of a seven months pregnant woman, who roasts maize in the streets of Bamenda and who suffers all kinds of abuses from her irresponsible lover. Her only crime for which she was battered is that she was tested HIV positive. When she was twice tested HIV negative, her boy friend organised parties with his friends, since he uses his girlfriend as an HIV litmus paper to know his status.

This vulnerability and other abuses such as female genital mutilation, inheritance, forced marriages and society's assigned positions compound the situation.Thus, during a recent national consultation workshop with journalists' network on violence against women, VAW, organised by the United Nations Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, the Regional Representative of UN Human Rights said discrimination against women continues to make its way in all sectors of the society.

Journalists, on their part, saw violence against women as a human rights abuse. They identified culture, laws, male chauvinism, poverty and lack of education as causes of discrimination and violence against women.

Violence against women, it was stated, could lead to drug abuse, affect the reproductive health of the woman, affect the woman's psychology, affect the family and, in some cases, result to death.

The workshop facilitator, Franklin Kiven, insisted that journalists have an important role to play in championing the fight on violence against women. He urged them to treat violence against women not only as human interest but as human rights stories.

Barely months to celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, much is still to be done to enable women, especially of rural areas, to enjoy more rights.

The AFROL report states that women are recognised as a fundamental force in the quest to eradicate poverty and maintain the stability of families and societies. Without improving the status of women, it states, we cannot expect any real progress in society, and especially in the battle against AIDS.

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