Af Madame Madeleine MEMB, Head of board at WCIC.
Kvinders retssikkerhed i Cameroun er blevet styrket takket være et samarbejde mellem en dansk NGO og kvindelige advokater i Cameroun. Men projektet er lukningstruet på grund af den danske regerings planer om at spare på udviklingsbistanden.
Advokater og klienter hos WCIC.
More than 200 Cameroonian women have already benefited from legal assistance since 2005, when a partnership between a Danish NGO, RAW – Rights for All Women and a group of women lawyers in Cameroon, WCIC – Women’s Counseling and Information Center started.
Thanks to this partnership, thousands of other women are constantly educated on their fundamental rights, and are therefore able to express themselves more freely concerning the violence that affects them.
Like in the majority of African countries, the question of women’s rights still constitutes great concern in Cameroon, despite the ratification of various conventions and other international protocols by the State intended to guarantee women’s rights.
Societal violence continues to affect women physically and psychologically on the continent.
Giving smiles and hope back
The partnership between RAW and WCIC has allowed to favor a strong mobilization in the fight against violence against women, in particular regarding matrimonial rights.
In Cameroun, for instance, it is common that a husband sells or mortgages the matrimonial home without informing his wife or asking for her opinion.
And he is allowed to do so according to the Cameroonian civil code art.1421 and 1428.
Up till now RAW and WCIC have succeeded in waking up a consciousness concerning this despoilment of women, and have, for some of the women, obtained justification from the national judiciary authorities by using the UN convention on women’s right (CEDAW art. 15,2 and art. 16,1 (h)).
”For the women we have defended it is like a dream. Our program of legal assistance gives them their smile and hope back,” says Maître Yvelyne NTANFA BANDJI, national president of WCIC who has led a delegation of nine WCIC members to Denmark to exchange perspectives on a strengthening of the partnership with RAW.
Risk of closing
The Danish government’s plans to redirect 2,5 billion kroner away from foreign aid could result in withdrawing funding of activities like the ones at WCIC and other member associations of CISU.
This information, revealed by representatives of CISU, discourages the WCIC’s delegation, during their visit to Copenhagen last week.
According to Judge Helen FON ACHU, member of the Consultative Committee of WCIC, “It is like a house which cannot have a roof. A closing of our center would be a huge setback for the movement towards recovery of the wrongs doing towards women, which has already gained considerably foothold in Cameroon.”
WCIC’s advokater ved retsbygning i Douala.
