For over a decade, Cameroon has witnessed an ongoing insurgency by the Boko Haram Islamic group in the far North region and a socio-political armed crisis in the two English-speaking regions of the country. These crises have led to millions of internal displacements that have affected women and girls disproportionately. A staggering 80% of schools and 38% of health facilities are out of action, and sexual violence has increased exponentially. These regions have witnessed a resultant surge in rape, incest, unwanted and teenage pregnancies, infanticide, unsafe abortion, and increase in morbidity and maternal mortality.
With support from SAAF, CYJULERC has been working to advocate for the application of the abortion law by the judiciary and health workers to enable rape survivors to access safe legal abortion care.
Rape survivors have a right to safe abortion under the law in Cameroon.
The abortion law in Cameroon allows for legal abortion under certain conditions, including where the pregnancy is a result of rape. However, we have observed that despite the surge in rape cases in the crisis regions, the law is barely being enforced or is wrongly applied. We have also seen that due to a lack of knowledge of the law, rape survivors do not apply for the certificates which they need to access their right to legal safe abortion care in public facilities.
The common practice is for prosecutors to file all rape cases before trials, and most jurisdictions adopt lengthy court trials to prove that the pregnancy is a result of rape. This means that judgments are often delivered when the gestation age is beyond the authorized term for legal abortion. This deprives survivors of their right to access abortion care under the law.
The difficulty in accessing the required medical certificate with sufficient evidence to sustain a rape charge (including the usual lack of witnesses to corroborate survivors’ testimonies) constitutes a huge barrier to accessing legal abortion care. Most trials end in verdicts which deny the right to legal abortion.
We are educating women and girls about their right to safe, legal abortion.
We are empowering women and girls with knowledge about their rights to legal safe abortion care in public health facilities and raising awareness about the process of filing a complaint when they have been raped. Complaints filed by women as soon as they are raped constitute valid proof of rape for resultant subsequent pregnancy. Applications for the abortion certificates have increased as more rape survivors are now filing complaints and benefitting from the application of the abortion law.
We are also training State Prosecutors to ensure they are aware of their duties under the law and are issuing certificates ordering health workers to provide abortion care to rape survivors. Rape survivors are now receiving abortion certificates from prosecutors, and 30 women and girls have received legal abortion care without needing to go through long and emotionally taxing trials.
CYJULERC also works to educate other stakeholders of reproductive health and rights about the new criminal procedure dispensation that abolishes the need for witnesses and corroboration. They know now that the rape survivor’s statement and testimony alone is enough evidence to sustain a rape offence.
We remain hopeful that this improvement on the application of the abortion law will extend to other jurisdictions so that all rape survivors across Cameroon can make informed choices and access legal abortion care when they need it.
By Esther Ayuk, President of Cameroon Young Jurists Legal Resource Center (CYJULERC), a SAAF grantee partner in Cameroon.