Methodology

This report was researched by three Cameroonian organizations – Alternatives-Cameroun, Association for the Defense of Gays and Lesbians (ADEFHO), and Cameroon Foundation for AIDS (CAMFAIDS) – and by an international organization, Human Rights Watch.

Primary research took place in October 2012 and from January to February 2013. Researchers visited Yaoundé, Douala, Buea, Kumba, and Limbe and interviewed 14 of the 26 people we knew to have been prosecuted for homosexuality between 2010 and 2012, including five who had been convicted. One person was interviewed in a country outside Cameroon where he had sought asylum. Researchers also spoke to police and Ministry of Justice officials, lawyers, academics, Cameroonian and international nongovernmental organizations, UN officials, and foreign diplomats.

Interviews were conducted in French or English by researchers fluent in those languages. All interviews were voluntary. No one was paid for providing information for this report.

The names of victims are provided in the report in some instances, where there are judicial proceedings against them that are already a matter of public record and that have received significant media attention. However, some of these victims also provided information that is not on the public record, on issues such as mistreatment in custody and efforts by the security forces to seek bribes. In these cases, and where the victims are minors, their names have been withheld or changed.  Names of other victims—those who were not the subjects of public court proceedings or have not been subject to media attention—have been withheld to preserve their anonymity.

One limitation to this research is that researchers were only able to visit three of Cameroon’s 10 regions: Central, Littoral, and Southwest. We also received information and interviewed the accused from one case in South province. It is unclear whether prosecutions on the basis of article 347 bis have taken place in the other six regions, which are primarily rural.

The Ministry of Justice did not respond to repeated requests from Human Rights Watch to provide further information on the cases referenced in its annual human rights report.