This month, Etali Genesis Akwaji, is joining us to share about practices within Cameroon that need to change, and the consequences of this long-standing practice.
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SUSTAIN Cameroon is a grassroots non-profit that is based in the North West Region of Cameroon. Our organization has an aim to promote and protect the rights of women, girls and orphans and vulnerable children. We work to enhance the rights and well-being of women, girls and orphans and vulnerable children in communities across Cameroon and particularly in the North West Region of the country. We strive to promote their economic independence and create safe spaces for them to survive and to thrive.
Our intervention is a bit weighted on the practical needs with the goal to build their economic resilience. We provide them with access to vocational skills training, income generation and small business practices and also creation of financial strengthening schemes with the introduction and institution of revolving savings and micro loan schemes in their midst to enable them to improve on their business capital and to stand on their feet. Our belief is that if these women are able to meet their basic needs without having to look up to their (abusive) partners, it is possible they can escape abuses and develop their niche of protection against all forms of violence against them. We also seek to return those willing to continue an education to school through scholarship assistance.
Our current flagship program is to contribute to ending child, early and forced marriages and sexual exploitation. The project seeks to empower 50 child brides with income generation. Through this project we are providing small business capital, vocational skills training opportunities, scholarship support for continued education to child brides and girls at risk. We are also providing them with access to sexual and reproductive health and rights including menstrual health management. We also train them, their caregivers and some community volunteers on child protection, community activism and engage them as activists and campaigners against child, early and forced marriages, sexual exploitation, GBV, human trafficking and modern-day slavery.
We are working in communities across the North West Region of Cameroon. With the involvement of volunteers, new partnership windows opened, we will be able to strengthen the efforts we are making and serve many more constituents who are also looking up to have their life's situations changed.
Issue of forced marriage in Cameroon!
Early and Forced marriages remain a major concern in Cameroon. According to UNICEF (State of the World's Children 2017), 31% of girls in Cameroon are married before their 18th birthday and 10% are married before the age of 15. These figures are also released by the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and the Family, which stipulates that at least 41% of Cameroonian girls are forced into marriage and most of the time to much older men.
The majority of girls falling victim to child, early and forced marriage are aged between 13 – 15, thus making the age group the most affected, this is amounting to about 60% of these girls falling victim to CEFM.
The legal minimum age for marriage in Cameroon until now was 15 for girls, 18 for boys (Cameroon Penal Code). However, in 2016, the government committed to eliminate CEFM by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals and after signing a joint statement at the human rights council in 2014 calling for a resolution on child marriage, took a giant step and made some legal modification to section 356 of the Penal code, thus raised the minimum age of marriage from 15 years for girls to 18 years to equate it for both boys and girls.
Cameroon is signatory to and has ratified several international human rights instruments/documents that set minimum age of marriage of 18 and which obligate states to ensure free and full consent to marriage. Some of these instruments are; the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1993; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1994; the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, including article 21 regarding the prohibition of child marriage, in 1997; African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, including article 6 which sets the minimum age for marriage at 18.
Although the government has taken these important steps to eliminate child, early and forced marriages, a lot more still has to be done especially with the applicability and propagation of the amendment to the Penal Code and yet still the International Human Rights instruments to which it is party to as entrenched customs and traditions and gender inequality still dominate the scene especially at the local level.
Notwithstanding, the vectors and catalysts to child, early and forced marriages are way beyond mere laws put in place as a majority of these girls who fall victim to CEFM emanate from very poor and resource limited families and communities. They are pushed into such marriages because of their living conditions and their inability to meet their basic needs. This is exacerbated by the absence of strong community mechanisms and structures to ensure they survive and thrive plus entrenched customs and traditions (say the way of life) that are the bedrock of the social constructs of the people and society and that have not been affected by the new law and decision to push the minimum age to 18 years for girls to be married and more or less outlawed by the International Human Rights Instruments sanctioning CEFM.
Consequences of forced marriage on the girl child
Girls who marry early are more likely to experience violence, abuse, and forced/coerced sexual relations. Early pregnancy and childbearing are some of the dangerous causes and consequences of the harmful practice of child marriage. CEFM robs the girl of basic human rights (e.g. education, reproductive rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights, consensual marriage, freedoms etc.) and of a future. Many of these girls who marry early are very vulnerable and susceptible to domestic violence, poor mental health, and malnutrition. Our resource limited communities act as catalyst and a push factor for child early and forced marriages, human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and girls in the heart of our communities. Women and girls' inability to have access and control over productive resources, inheritance and landed property continue to be a strong vector for their vulnerability to all forms of gender based violence and abuses, child, early and forced marriages, sexual exploitation and human trafficking and modern day slavery. Many interventions seem to place a lot of emphasis on the strategic needs with little efforts on their practical needs and thus leaving them constantly to the threat and repeated cycle of abuse since they are unable to meet their basic needs and always have to depend on their (abusive) partners for survival. Providing them with sustainable solutions to their welfare is paramount to enabling them to build their resilience and to avail themselves of all forms of abuses. This documentary puts a face to the challenges that these women and girls undergo living in such abusive conditions and strive to stimulate a shift in approach and to enable a robust intervention to providing sustainable livelihoods solutions to these women and girls to enable them to survive and thrive. Alternatively, you can follow this YouTube link: https://youtu.be/xwftWhghQSE
Our work is currently developing in communities across the North West Region of Cameroon with the hope to extend to other parts of the country. With your partnership, we will be able to strengthen the efforts we are making, scale up the work we are doing and to serve many more constituents who are also looking up to have their life's situations changed. it would be a wonderful opportunity to work together in the trenches, changing lives and in making the world safer and a better place for all. Please should you require additional information about or wish to partner or support our work, follow the links in the article and you can also contact us directly through our contact details
#AMI #Fundacaoami #SUSTAINCameroon #Childmarriage #Endchildmarriage #EarlyPregnancies #Childbearing #CEFM #Sexualexploitation #SexualAbuse #Empoweringwomen #ChildAbuse #sextrafficking #domesticviolence #Metoo #womensrights #childrights #girlsrights #HeforShe #womenshealth #humarights
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Etali Genesis Akwaji is the founder/CEO the Association for Sustainable Development Livelihood Initiatives (SUSTAIN Cameroon); a grassroots non-profit with goal eradicate harmful practices that perpetrate violence against women and children. Etali has extensive years of work in community activism, leading advocacy against gender violence in the heart of our community. He is an ardent advocate for the promotion and protection of women and children's rights and a gender activist.
Website: http://www.sustaincmr.wordpress.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/SUSTAINCameroon
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sustaincmr
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sustain-cameroon-24516179
YouTube: https://youtu.be/xwftWhghQSE
