Different Realities, Different Therapies:

A Victim in a Deaf & Mute Environment

By Sybille Ngo Nyeck

[Ed. Note: The following essay was originally delivered at the 2 nd International Francophone Congress on Sexual Assaults in Brussels, Belgium from May 7-9, 2003.]

The issue of sexual assault is known around the world. In Cameroon, two jurisdictions (or methods) are considered effective in preventing and repressing sexual abuse: the oral jurisdiction (traditional) and the written jurisdiction (the penal code).

I.  The Prevention and Repression of Sexual Infractions in Cameroon: International Legislation on this Issue.

A. The traditional jurisdiction and its positive or negative influences within the culture toward the prevention of sexual abuse.

The facts show that no tribes in Cameroon have made an exception that would legitimize excision, forced marriage, or incest. Unfortunately, some situations still favor sexual abuse in general, and incest in particular.

Traditionally, the child in Africa belongs to the whole community, which is usually built on a phallic model of masculine domination.   Some situations have favored - and to some extent legitimized under the society's control - the sexual abuse of the weak. Some sexual initiation rituals have provided good pretexts for abuse.

In the name of tradition, the traditional submission of women and the denial of freedom of speech to children have covered up sexual misconduct for a long period of time. The silence assigned to the victims of sexual assault is a prejudice especially felt by children, whom we today recognize as having some rights, such as the right of speech and the right to have an opinion and to expect that this opinion will be respected.

These old traditions of sexist and age-based discrimination that baptized the victim and the offender in the same water of "purification" prove that there is an urgent need for new interpretations, or they must die. To reject the responsibility of criminal sexual offenses upon abstract entities open the door to the banality and the irrational fear of the problem and the victims.

If culture is the sum of personal and collective responses to internal and external challenges, the surviving traditional rites of "purification" do not meet the expectations of many. This is because most of the rites were made up without the endorsement of the women and the children who represent the biggest percentage of those who are sexually assaulted. On these grounds, the traditional rites of "purification" cannot be seriously considered as the personal and collective responses of the victims. If the rites fail to draw the lines between the victim and the offender, it is obvious that the therapy will be unsuccessful, especially for the victims. In summary, the rites of "purification" deal with the physical aspect of assaults, which forsakes the fact that all sexual assaults are not physical and that doesn't mean they are less damaging.

Tradition is a construction that must be deconstructed whenever it affects human dignity. The rituals of "purification" of the sexually assaulted preach a wrong message and a false hope to victims.

In my view, the only sensible contemporary "rite" of public utility that could serve as a reference is the International Convention for Children Rights, which originates from traditions but gives better answers to cultural barriers. Tradition is a construction that must be deconstructed whenever it affects human dignity. The rituals of "purification" of the sexually assaulted preach a wrong message and a false hope to victims. A model of so-called social peace that sacrifices the truth on the altar of injustice to the prejudice of penal sanctions must be denied. The traditional jurisdiction improves:

• Hypocrisy by its silence on incest and the mystification of the victims' pains;
• Coercive role models between men and women; the weak and the strong;
• Denials of the assaults even though incest is forbidden;
• Etc...

Presently, the situation of women and children is still precarious. Family poverty exposes young girls to prostitution with its corollaries of sexual transmitted diseases (STDs), HIV/AIDS and unwanted pregnancies. Clandestine abortions continue to kill women on a national scale. The situation of young adolescent mothers is no longer shocking. Some families lack a bed for one child; consequently, the child's privacy is constantly invaded by family members and sometimes by unknown people who are not always trustful.

If the traditional system does not advocate well for the victims of sexual assault and particularly the victims of incest, it is sad to say that the legal jurisdiction is not always satisfying either.

B. The legal jurisdiction, its hopes and limits in the prevention of sexual abuse.

Sexual offenses are forcefully repressed in Cameroonian law. The legislation on this issue is reported in the Penal Code that declares unlawful and represses: sex-slavery (Art. 294); indecent assault (Art. 295); rape (Art. 296-346); child prostitution (Art.343); youth corruption (Art. 344); forced marriages (Art. 356); incest (Art. 360), etc... The punishment for these offences is doubled when either the victims' parents or guardians are the perpetrators.

A minor (under 21 years old) cannot be heard in the court without a permission of his/her parents or guardians. This provision handicaps minors who have been abused by their parents or legal guardians. Taking into consideration the social realities and the millennial taboos that shadow the sexual life, the abuse is usually not denounced but is sometimes accidentally discovered .   The victims pantomime the abuse; some "curious" folks discuss it but nobody denounces it. Frequently parents and families will prefer a settlement out of court with financial compensation to a trial that will bring shame and dishonor and compromise the chances of the abused girl to " be chosen " as a wife. The exorbitant costs of the court fees are also a handicap for middle class families.

There is not yet a real awareness of the gravity of pedophilia and its devastating effects. It seems like the society is fleeing from its responsibility; the social and moral contract with children is broken.

There is not yet a real awareness of the gravity of pedophilia and its devastating effects. It seems like the society is fleeing from its responsibility; the social and moral contract with children is broken. However, we are in need of a law and a speech that are born from the substratum of a praxis that gives account of the situation as well as the position of those who carry or suffer it. We are still miles away from this step.

By maintaining a time limit of ten years for criminal trials to be initiated, the law prevents many of those who were victims as children of the right to sue. It sounds like a reproach to children trapped in the world of adults who are not willing to renounce to the prerogatives of the primogeniture. Consequently, there have been an increasing number of sexual assaults on children that will never be known in the courts. To these barriers is added the gangrene of the corruption of the judiciary system, which has benefited from all "doubts" aggravating circumstances of impunity. But for the majority of the victims of incest that I met, the need of a supportive environment is stronger than the thirst for justice.

II. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and the Government in the Fight against Sexual Abuse.

In Cameroon, the NGOs that are advocating for children rights have been unsuccessful in building up either a critical social conscience or a social network for justice that represents the diversity of local and national cultures. There are NGOs that are theoretically ideological allies, but their real motivation is to make money rather than addressing sexual assaults. There is no fundamental alliance between NGOs, the government and victims. There is no process for victims to truly work with their so-called defendants. There is no transfer of vocabulary.

Children's pain is captured and recycled into business assets by the most "cunning." Their research analysis and studies rarely clearly express situational and existential options. Each side (the government and the NGOs) claims to be the "voice of the voiceless" in order to give them a certain legitimacy and good conscience, but this does not represent effectiveness.

It is necessary for the sake of the children that all social, cultural and political forces unite against sexual abuse. However, the government is hard of hearing in the fight for the protection of children and the respect of their rights. The government's silence is deafening. Unfortunately, in this deaf and mute environment, sexual abuses remain a private concern.

There are no welcoming shelters anywhere. When a victim or a family member actually succeeds in finding the office of a social worker, they discover the workers have no real power, other than perhaps that of recording stories.

There is no toll-free phone number for victims in the entire country. There are no welcoming shelters anywhere. When a victim or a family member actually succeeds in finding the office of a social worker, they discover the workers have no real power, other than perhaps that of recording stories.

The absence of a national monitoring agency on sexual violence makes the data incomplete. There is also a great lack of expertise on pedophilia issues. I doubt there is a single expert in this field in Cameroon. What is more visible on this issue is the absence of a strategic alliance between social advocates. Everyone moves at his/her own speed whenever it is possible.

Meanwhile, there are a few people in Cameroon who have made sexual assaults their fields of interest.

A. Research

Pauline Biyong initiated the research on this issue in Cameroon. In 1990, working with a population of 44 children under 16 years old while doing her thesis at the Yaounde Central Hospital, Biyong found that 49% of the children had been sexually abused. Since then, additional research on this topic has been done by Mbassa Menick & Ngoh between 1997 and 1999.

A study in 1999 by Mbassa Menick & Ngoh sought to estimate the prevalence of sexual abuse in schools. It evaluated the participation of teachers with the aim of creating activities and campaigning for the care of victims. The period of the transversal search questionnaire was six months (the first semester of the year 1999). Schools were chosen not because they "show more concern about sexual abuse than the family" but rather because "the school is effectively a privileged intersection; it's a place of meeting and of debate for all adolescent victims against their will."

Mbassa observed that:

• Many students revealed their life stories. These youths were in need of a forum to share about their lives. Their experiences were often painful and pathetic. As a result of this, I believe that the systematic opposition to progress on this issue of sexual assault is based on the pretext of the invisibility of the victims. This can no longer prosper and has become inexcusable.
• The evidence of sexual victimization of students by non-academic perpetrators has a negative affect on students' behavior.  
• There were neither infirmaries nor shelters in any of the schools visited. Even worse, information was non-existent about describing or detecting sexual abuse or ways to sensitize adults to it. The situation has not changed until now.

According to these surveys, the involvement of the teaching staffs in the realization of such acts is not negligible: 13.7% from a population of 51 cases with 9.8% of high-school teachers against 3.9% of private tutors. According to the researchers, these alarming results (1999) indicated a high percentage of the professional of childhood with 24.9% of high schools and grade schools teachers against 23.5% of private tutors in a serie of 17 cases.

B. Incest and Pedophilia

The above-mentioned survey is focused on sexual abuses at school. To my knowledge, no survey has been done on the issue of incest in Cameroon. Incest affects all social classes. The silence of the society on this issue is evidence that sexual abuses tend to be accepted as normative. There are circles of silence which are working together to perpetuate the dumbness and muteness of the society.

Sexual abuses have been ignored for so long by our society, so the evidence of its prevalence emerges more from daily testimonies than statistics. Ms. Biyong (1990) found 42% of sexual abuse took place in the victim's domicile. According to Mbassa (1999), 71.3% of sexual abuse took place in the home: documenting that it was the victim's domicile in 123 cases (43%), and the perpetrator's domicile in 81 cases (28.4%).

My knowledge of sexual abuses came from personal experience and testimonies from people I worked with. Sexual scandals reported in newspapers are also a good resource.

According to Mbassa. "The scale of the victims' age varies between 4 and 15 years old with an average of 11.6% and a typical difference of 3.02%. The victims are usually pre-pubescent and pubescent kids (72.9%). They are [about] the age of ten and young girls are the exclusive targeted majority." This tendency is confirmed by previous surveys: Mbassa Menick (1997); Mbassa Menick & Ngoh (1998-1999), Mbassa Menick (1999). Young girls represented 72.5% of the victims against 27.5 % of boys. Previous surveys showed different data with a larger percentage of young girls 90% and less than 10% of boys (Mbassa Menick & Ngoh 1998-1999).  

Sexual touching is frequently a method of abuse (54.6%). Some previous surveys presented a large proportion of rape, sometimes above 90% [Mbassa Menick (1997); Mbassa Menick & Ngoh (1998-1999)]. Mbassa Menick's research (1999) on the criminalization of sexual offenses found rape reported in 41.5% of cases (a population of 224 victims).

Hope comes, however, contrary to all expectations, from the victims who are breaking the silence. Sometimes they are talking to people who are not ready or prepared to help them. In a recent study, 57.6% of the victims spoke with someone about their abuse. Most of the time it was a brother, a sister, a cousin or a friend (33.4% of cases), or parents, usually the mother (in more than 23% of cases). The victims speak during and after the abuse, but covertly.

If there is a silence that should be broken, it is that of the society, not the victims.

Conclusion

On the one hand, we must recognize that the international community has the right to denounce any violation or misuse of international treatises. On the other hand, we must acknowledge the efforts of some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the fight against sexual abuse at the national; regional and international level. Therefore, I suggest:

• The creation within the "Francophonie" (the Francophone, or French-speaking, world) of a project focused on helping developing countries address the issue of sexual assault. This program will create a link between different sectors and stakeholders on the elimination of sexual assaults in a more integrated approach; following inductive steps. The exchange with professionals on this subject will then be less virtual, and will move from gatherings to sharing technical assistance between Francophone countries. Fighting against sexual violence could then be - like good governance and human rights and civil liberties protection - included as a pre-requisite in bilateral and multilateral agreements.

• We denounce fictive NGOs that are means of building personal propaganda and success rather than working on behalf of the victims. The cement that binds the victims together is the pain from their abuse combined with the dream of a victim-centered intervention approach.

  The creation of an International Fellowship of Survivors . "To stop evil one must know what it is made of: who are the victims and who are the perpetrators. Anyone who has not taken the defense of the oppressed is directly or indirectly an accomplice of the evil." We are not indebted to ignorance, especially NGOs and civil society. Ignorance should never be an excuse; lucidity should be the first rule. Abused children, women and men have denounced the NGOs that have avoided the discourse and diverted funds intended for victims. We denounce fictive NGOs that are means of building personal propaganda and success rather than working on behalf of the victims. The cement that binds the victims together is the pain from their abuse combined with the dream of a victim-centered intervention approach. This approach will provide for real empowerment : getting them to participate in the redefinition of their story and the mechanism of defense. A vision of an International Fellowship of Survivors is a call for a global approach of this thistly problem.
• Actions that will encourage governments that are already involved in this fight, and also actions to push those who have been slow to help in the harmonization of national, regional and legal dispositions against sexual exploitation. The proposed "Francophonie" could facilitate this search for unity and harmony to stop sexual abuse.

Thank you.

Sybille Ngo Nyeck is a regular contributor to A Globe of Witnesses. Her monthly column is Colors of Conscience . Sybille can be emailed at sybeck77@yahoo.fr