Cameroon: Violent acts against women buried by seven year conflict
By Wanchia Cynthia Photo credit: Neba Jerome Back-view of Cecilia’s burned skin after being assaulted by unknown gunmen in Bamenda. " I was physically assaulted by the mob because they found items belonging to the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party in my bag. They poured petrol on my body and set me on fire. Money that I had on me to buy my business items were also seized". 41-year-old Cecilia is a mother of four children and a survivor of Physical Violence, one of six types of Gender-Based Violence (GBV). GBV is phenomenon that has witnessed an increase within the English-speaking regions of Cameroon rocked by a socio-political crisis commonly called the Anglophone crisis since 2016. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in 2020 documented over 4300 cases of sexual and gender-based violence across the two Anglophone regions affected by the crisis. Almost half of these cases are sexual or physical assault and rape. The United...