Against femicide in Cameroon, a call for "urgent measures"

Since the beginning of 2023, at least 29 murders of women have been recorded in Cameroon. Violence that takes place, most often, in the family sphere. On Monday, May 15, the Minister for the Promotion of Women, Marie-Thérèse Abena Ondoa, launched a plea for the adoption of a specific framework law.

In particular, the associations advocate for the recognition of the specificity of femicide. Here in Douala, in January 2022 (illustration). AFP - CHARLY TRIBALLEAU

Text by: Amélie Tulet Follow

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On 11 April, in Lindoï, in the Centre region, a 12-year-old girl died after her uncle beat her on suspicion of stealing 20,000 francs. The next day, in Mokolo in the Far North, a high school teacher dies with her throat slit by her husband after an argument.

"Not a week goes by without a tragic fact of ritual crime, femicide, rape or other ill-treatment resulting in the death of a woman or girl," lamented the Minister for the Promotion of Women and the Family, Marie-Thérèse Abena Ondoa, at the launch of her plea on May 15. "The paintings are more horrible than each other. Women have become butchers, the target for the dissatisfied, the embittered, the "bad in the skin", denounces Elise Pierrette Mpoung Meno, co-founder and president of the Association for the fight against violence against women.

Plasfoscil (Platform of Civil Society Organizations of the Littoral Region) and several other platforms signed a declaration on April 28 in which they "protest against the strange silence of our government that is dragging on taking urgent measures to reduce these cases of violence against women". The signatories express their concern about "the trivialization of gender-based violence, observe with bitterness the impunity that persists".

Violence in the intimate sphere

This violence is most often perpetrated within the family. "Spouses, companions or parents, have become the executioners for their own wives, companions or daughters," said Minister Marie-Thérèse Abena Ondoa. To draft the framework law it advocates, workshops are planned with associations.

For Haingo Rabeantoandro wife Manga Ada, program coordinator at the ALVF-Antenne Centre in Yaoundé, the legal arsenal, as it stands, is insufficient. "Even though Cameroon has made the effort to update the penal code, in 2016, we did a whole evaluation study of the various articles specific to violence against women and we identified shortcomings.

The associations plead in particular for the recognition of the specificity of femicide, which is not a murder like the others, like infanticide. "Femicide is unique in that it is because of the female sex of the victim that her life is taken away. If the victim had been male, his life would have been preserved," said Magistrate Yvonne Akoa, national coordinator of the "family law" commission at Acafej, the Cameroonian Association of Women Lawyers.

Changing legislation to better protect women

Plasfocil, in its letter of 28 April, also recommends that the authorities amend the legislation to take into account the urgency of situations of violence, that the penalties be exemplary. For women's rights defenders, when the perpetrator is a relative of the victim, this link must be considered an aggravating circumstance. The penalties for perpetrators must be "doubled, or even tripled when they are intimate partners or family members" of the victim, according to Elise Pierrette Mpoung Meno, the president of the ALVF.

For associations, the judicial police, the police, the gendarmes, doctors must be made aware. "There are still people today who will tell complainants that marital conflicts are settled in the family," says magistrate Yvonne Akoa.

Other demands include the creation of an independent national gender observatory to collect and document cases, the introduction of the concept of gender-based violence into school textbooks, the construction of safe spaces in all municipalities of the country to guarantee the safety and assistance of victims and to make emergency numbers effective. Plasfocil also calls on the government to speed up the process of adopting the Family Code.

Elise Pierrette Mpoung Meno also wants women's rights organizations to be able to file civil parties in trials for femicide and gender-based violence.

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