Social stigma, lack of awareness and inadequate funds lead to underreporting of rape in Cameroon. Too young to understand what rape is let alone to report it to authorities, young girls are especially vulnerable. The Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and the Family, medical and legal professionals and human rights organizations are working to raise awareness and encourage reporting.
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by Nakinti Nofuru Reporter, Thursday - March 1, 2012
Reporting Rape: Part Eight in a Global Series
BUEA, CAMEROON – A 35-year-old mother, who declined to be named to avoid stigmatization of her family, says she was raped when she was 7. Her daughter was also raped at age 3 and infected with syphilis.
The mother says this is the first time she has told anyone that she was raped. And she hasn’t told her daughter, now 14, that she was raped as a toddler.
“I think history is repeating itself,” the mother says. “And these two incidents, especially that of my daughter, have completely left me disturbed in my entire life.”
The mother grew up as an orphan in Mendankwe, a village in the Northwest region of Cameroon. Her father died when her mother was pregnant with her, and her mother died while giving birth to her. Her uncle raised her in the village until age 7, when a maternal aunt came and took her to Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon.
She started attending a primary school that was about five kilometers away from her aunt’s home. Her aunt dropped her off at school every morning and picked her up every afternoon. But one day, about three weeks after she enrolled, her aunt did not come to pick her up from school.
“I couldn’t go home alone because I did not know the way to the house,” she says. “I stayed in school until places were dark, and I then decided to go to my aunt’s office since I felt I knew where the office was.”
She walked a long distance to her aunt’s office. As a child, she says she could not have imagined that her aunt would not be in the office at that hour. When she got there, the building was locked. Frustrated, she sat outside, hoping for a miracle.
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