Civil Society Pledges To Speak Out Against Marginalisation Of Women

By Kini Nsom

Some members of the civil society in Cameroon have pledged to speak out with one voice against all forms of discrimination against women.

The advocates made the pledge while seeking to harmonise and validate various civil society reports on the International Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, CEDAW, in Yaounde, on August 5.

The Cameroon Association of Female Jurists, CAFEJ, in collaboration with other NGOs organised the meeting.Speaking at the occasion, CAFEJ Coordinator, Barrister Sume Eyoh, said the International Federation of Women Lawyers, FIDA, Cameroon branch, and the Network for Peace and Democracy, NEPED, among other NGOs, have all written reports that need to be harmonised for the civil society to speak with one voice.

Barrister Sume also underlined the need to beef up the civil society report with statistics that gave a faithful rendition as to what progress has been made to arrest discrimination against women in Cameroon.

To her, the Nigerian example should be emulated because that country presented its CEDAW report recently with contributions from over 30 civil society organisations.Participants at the meeting harped on and made recommendations on the under-representation of women in politics, women's education, employment, health and socio-economic rights of women.

The plight of the rural woman and equality before marriage also came into focus during the meeting. In a chat with The Post, one of the participants, Beatrice Annembom Monju, said the CEDAW Convention would change the agonising plight of women if it is fully implemented in Cameroon. She regretted that Cameroon is still full of chauvinistic conservatives who believe that every woman should be relegated to the background.

"Women themselves do not come up to support other women against discrimination by men", she remarked. Annembom said politics in Cameroon remains a slippery and hostile ground to women. To her, political parties do not respect the quota allocated for women's representation in parliament and local councils.

She said the Cameroonian society needs a lot of education for all forms of discrimination against women to be eliminated.On her part, the FIDA project officer of the Legal AID Clinic in Kumba, Mrs. Vera Minang, said Cameroon is essentially a male chauvinism oriented society.

To her, the meeting was essentially to examine the government report on the CEDAW Convention identify the loopholes and see how to fill the gaps using a holistic approach.
Minang remarked that government was doing little to amend laws that discriminate against women.

She quoted for instance the law on adultery, saying that only circumstantial evidence and allegations can make the women guilty while a man needs to be caught several times with another woman in his marital home to be guilty of adultery. She also quoted Section 74 of the Civil Status Registration Ordinance that provides that a man can stop his wife from having a job if he deems that such a job can destabilise his family.

To her, such laws need to be amended for the elimination of discrimination against women to be a reality in Cameroon.