In Cameroon, women and girls face persistent domestic violence and gender discrimination without meaningful protection or access to justice.
Entrenched systemic gender inequality, discriminatory laws, and weak institutions, exacerbated by chronic underinvestment in prevention and survivor support, fuels the violence.
A new Human Rights Watch report documents widespread violence against women, including physical, psychological, and economic abuse, in most cases by husbands and intimate partners.
>> Read the report: “I Live in Constant Peril”
Researchers found that physical and economic abuse was used to restrict access to financial resources, social security, employment, property, and economic independence.
One woman told us she spent nearly three decades confined to her family’s compound, forbidden from leaving, speaking to others, or pursuing her desire to start a small business, and beaten if she disobeyed.
These abuses are not isolated incidents but are rooted in entrenched gender inequality, discriminatory laws, and weak institutions, exacerbated by the government’s chronic underinvestment in prevention and survivor support.
Women who had sought help from authorities described being pressured to reconcile with their abusers, being blamed for the violence, or facing retaliation after reporting abuse.
“Violence against women is not simply the result of abusive actions by individuals,” said Juliana Nnoko, senior women’s rights advisor at HRW. “It is enabled and compounded by Cameroon’s discriminatory laws and institutional failures that leave survivors without protection.”
Cameroon’s international obligations require legal reform, sustained funding for survivor-centered services, and meaningful accountability for abusers.
Being a woman in Cameroon should not mean having to experience discrimination and violence.
