21.5%
of women and girls in Cameroon, experienced intimate partner violence in 2018
UNFPA engages extensively with civil society organizations
in working to address gender-based violence and harmful practices in Cameroon
DATA
SOURCES
Data insights are based on population-based household surveys representative at the national and/or sub-national levels.
1. WHO, Global, Regional and National Estimates for Intimate Partner Violence against Women and Global and Regional Estimates for Non-partner Sexual Violence against Women, 2021.
2. Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE-led Survey on Violence against Women, 2019-2020.
3. UNFPA, Preventing son preference and undervaluing of girls in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 2020.
4. Human Rights Watch, “I Sleep in my Own Deathbed”: Violence against Women and Girls in Bangladesh: Barriers to Legal Recourse and Support, 2020.
Aissa Doumara Ngatansou
Equipping survivors with tools for their own empowerment
“Women’s rights are not respected like they should be, and the crisis has further exacerbated the situation,” says Aissa Doumara Ngatansou, co-founder and coordinator of the Association to Combat Violence against Women (Association de Lutte contre les Violences faites aux Femmes, ALVF) in the Far North region of Cameroon.
Since 2014, the Boko Haram insurgency has devastated communities across the Lake Chad Basin, including in Cameroon’s Far North, Northwest and Southwest regions. Marked by violent attacks against civilians and infrastructure, including schools and health facilities, the armed conflict has fuelled displacement within and across borders and has given rise to urgent humanitarian needs.
It has also been characterized by a significant increase in reports of gender-based violence. For example, a 2019 rapid needs assessment conducted by UNFPA found that 87 per cent of internally displaced people from the Northwest and Southwest regions had experienced gender-based violence, including psychological and sexual violence.
As part of its mission to promote gender equality and end all forms of gender-based discrimination and violence, the ALVF provides aid, psychosocial support and economic empowerment to gender-based violence survivors, including women and girls affected by the crisis.
Aissa herself has been fighting for women’s rights for most of her life – starting with her own. “My own experience of discrimination inspired me to become the activist that I am today,” she told UNFPA’s sister agency UN Women.
Married against her will at 15, she fought to continue her studies despite her opposition from her husband’s family. Eventually, they relented. Once she finished high school, Aissa co-founded the ALVF so that other women in her community could access the support they needed.
Safety, dignity and empowerment
Today, the ALVF, a UNFPA partner, runs safe spaces for women and girls who have experienced gender-based violence – whether they are refugees, internally displaced, or members of local communities.
At the safe spaces, women and girls access a range of services and support, to help them meet their basic needs, recover and rebuild their lives.
“Restoring dignity is one part of the response in cases of gender-based violence,” Aissa says. Survivors are provided with UNFPA dignity kits, containing essential supplies like toothpaste, menstrual pads and underwear, so that they can maintain their personal hygiene even as they cope with crisis.
Beyond meeting their basic needs for safety and dignity, the ALVF safe spaces seek to equip survivors with the knowledge and skills to better cope with their experiences of violence and begin to build futures for themselves and their families.
“We have an empowerment programme,” says Aissa, “and we work on the causes and consequences of violence as well as child and forced marriage.” Survivors learn how child and forced marriages heighten the risks of violence, lead to unwanted pregnancies, and rob girls of the chance to get an education.
And, critically, they learn how these human rights violations are rooted in gender inequality and women’s economic dependence. Understanding that link not only helps survivors process their own experiences, but also shows them how cycles of gender-based violence and child marriage can be broken – in their own lives, to start with.
We work to help women become independent, so that they are recognized as full-fledged people who contribute to the development of their communities… and of the whole world.
— Aissa Doumara Ngatansou
© UNFPA West and Central Africa
Knowledge and skills change lives
Women and girls at ALVF safe spaces receive hands-on training that equips them with both knowledge about their human rights, and practical skills they can use to provide for themselves and their families.
“Many girls don’t finish school,” says Adiza, a participant in the economic empowerment programme, “and they don’t have the means to run their own small businesses.”
Married at 13, Adiza had suffered years of severe abuse at the hands of her husband, who isolated her completely. She never had a chance to finish her education or learn any skills to support herself.
“When Adiza came here, she was already 30 years old, but she didn’t know the city,” Aissa says, “because she hadn’t had the right to go out.”
“For all those years,” says Adiza, “I didn’t know I was in a situation of violence.”
But after she was abandoned by her husband, Adiza found her way to one of the ALVF’s UNFPA-supported safe spaces in the city of Maroua. There, she began to learn about her rights, and to reclaim her independence.
Adiza learned to sew, and thereby acquired the means to support herself. Now, she teaches other women the same skills, so that they, too, can achieve economic independence. She also participates in awareness-raising activities, speaking with other women and appearing in televised discussions about the causes and consequences of gender-based violence.
“My life is totally different now, and I’m very proud of what I have achieved,” she says.