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TITLE:  CAMEROON HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE:  FEBRUARY 1995



Section l.a.).

Section 3  Respect for Political Rights:  The Right of Citizens
           to Change Their Government

Citizens have the constitutional right to change their
government, but the 1992 presidential elections, which were
marred by widespread government manipulation, and the near
total dominance of the political process by the President and
his party call into serious doubt the ability of citizens to
exercise this right.

In contrast to the relatively open March 1992 National Assembly
elections, the last presidential election held in October 1992
was characterized by widespread irregularities; it was highly
criticized by independent observers and widely regarded in
Cameroon as fraudulent.

The Government's control over Cameroon's administrative
apparatus is broad and deep.  The President appoints by decree
the chief operating official, the Government Delegate, of
Yaounde, Douala, Bamenda, and several other large cities, which
have no elected mayors.  The governors of each of the provinces
are also appointed directly by the President.  Important lower
level members of the provincial administrative structures,
including the senior divisional officers, the divisional
officers, and the district chiefs are all appointed by the
Prime Minister, who is also a member of the CPDM.  The
governors and senior divisional officers wield considerable
authority within the areas under their jurisdiction, including,
significantly, the authority to ban political meetings that
they deem likely to threaten public order.  Governors and
divisional officers frequently exercised this authority during
the year to ban meetings by opposition parties.

The CPDM's longevity is best explained by the fact that the
extensive powers it derives from the 1972 Constitution enable
it to maintain itself in power.  Opposition parties,
recognizing that they are unlikely to win a significant measure
of participation in the governance of Cameroon under the
present Constitution, have consistently called for a process of
constitutional reform that would lead to a greater
decentralization of presidential power.  On December 15, the
President convened a consultative constitutional review
committee to review a draft constitution prepared by the
Government without outside consultation.  The members of the
committee were selected entirely by the President without
reference to the wishes of any other groups or entities and
were given 1 week to convey their responses to the Government's
draft.  The committee's deliberations were not open to public
scrutiny.  Far from mollifying opposition groups, this maneuver
by the Government was seen as an effort to manipulate
constitutional changes in a way that minimized public debate or
broad participation.

In April the Government attempted to ban a meeting of the
All-Anglophone Conference (AAC).  The AAC, a loose structure of
Anglophone organizations primarily from Cameroon's Northwest
and Southwest provinces, defied the ban and met secretly to
discuss constitutional reform issues, primarily focusing on the
creation of a federal system within Cameroon that would give
the Anglophone West a greater degree of autonomy.  Government
officials expressed concern that the AAC planned to issue a
call for secession by the Anglophone provinces.  In their
efforts to block the meeting, the Government first issued a ban
order, then placed security forces around the scheduled meeting
site.  AAC delegates contravened the Government's efforts by
holding a series of secret meetings.  The delegates, rather
than calling for secession, called for renewed efforts to
negotiate a federal constitution within a reasonable time.

The Government has focused its energies on weakening and
destabilizing all sources of opposition to the hold exercised
by the Beti ethnic group in the circle around the President and
within the CPDM.  However, while the President's inner circle
is heavily drawn from his own Beti ethnic group, all levels of
the administration include significant numbers from other
ethnic groups.  There are no specific discriminatory laws
prohibiting women or minorities from participating in
government or in other areas of public life.  Women are
represented in the President's Cabinet (2 of 44 members), the
National Assembly (21 of 180 members), the CPDM, the judicial
system, and numerous state-run enterprises, although not in
numbers proportional to their share of the population.
Suffrage is universal at age 20.

Section 4  Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
           Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
           of Human Rights

Domestic and international human rights monitoring groups
continued to operate.  Nevertheless, the Government impeded
their effectiveness through intimidation.  It limited access to
prisoners, delayed issuance of visas to international monitors,
and, in the case of the governmental National Commission on
Human Rights and Freedoms, withheld financial resources.

Among numerous nongovernmental civic associations, some of the
most active include the National League for Human Rights, the
Organization for Human Rights and Freedoms, the Association of
Women against Violence, the Cameroonian Association of Female
Jurists, the Cameroonian Association for Children's Rights, and
the Human Rights Clinic and Education Center.  Financial
hardships, inexperience, and occasional fear of government
reprisals sometimes discouraged these groups from publicly
criticizing the Government's human rights record.
Nevertheless, several organizations issued press releases to
denounce specific human rights abuses.

In general the Government did not respond publicly to specific
allegations of wrongdoing by human rights monitors.  Instead,
it issued a "white paper" on the state of human rights in the
country, which was widely criticized by independent observers
as an attempt to distort and justify its actual record of
abuses.  The ICRC did not visit prisoners in 1994 because past
experience indicated that, even when the Government permitted
ICRC access to prisons, it did not always provide access to
detainees of particular concern.  A few other international
organizations conducted investigations, and one in particular,
Paris-based Rapporteurs Sans Frontieres, denounced the
Government's repeated detention of journalists.  Amnesty
International issued reports on several cases of alleged human
rights abuses, and Article 19, a London-based organization,
also investigated abuses.

Section 5  Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion,
           Disability, Language, or Social Status

The Constitution prohibits discrimination based on sex,
enshrines freedom of religion, and mandates that "everyone has
equal rights and obligations."  However, discrimination based
on race, language, religion, or social status is not explicitly
forbidden.

     Women

Despite constitutional provisions recognizing women's rights,
women do not, in fact, enjoy the same rights and privileges as
men.  Polygyny is permitted by law and tradition, but polyandry
is not.  The extent to which a woman may inherit from her
husband is normally governed by traditional law in the absence
of a will, and customs vary from group to group.  In many
traditional societies, custom grants greater authority and
benefits to male than to female heirs.  In cases of divorce,
the husband's wishes determine custody of children over the age
of 6.  While a man may be convicted of adultery only if the
sexual act takes place in his home, a female may be convicted
without regard to venue.  In the northern provinces,
traditional leaders (Lamidat) prevent their numerous wives from
ever leaving the palace.

Women's rights advocates report that violence against women has
surged in recent years, and that the law does not impose
effective penalties against violators.  Spouse abuse is not a
legal ground for divorce.  In cases of sexual assault, a
victim's family or village often imposes direct, summary
punishment upon the suspected perpetrator through means ranging
from destruction of property to lynching.  While there are no
reliable statistics on violence against women, the number of
newspaper reports indicates its frequency is high.

     Children

The Constitution provides for a child's right to education, and
schooling is mandatory through age 14.  Nevertheless, rising
school fees and costs for books have forced many families to
forego sending their children to school.  Babies and small
children are sometimes held in prison if their mothers are
incarcerated.  Familial child abuse is not common, but is one
of several targeted issues of children's rights organizations.

Female genital mutilation (FGM), which has been condemned by
international health experts as dangerous to both physical and
psychological health, is not practiced widely but is practiced
in some areas of Far North and Southwest provinces.  It
includes the most severe and dangerous form of the abuse,
infibulation, and is usually practiced on young, preadolescent
girls.  The Government does not recognize FGM as a problem and
has allocated no resources to education on the issue.

     National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities

There are frequent and credible allegations of discrimination
among Cameroon's more than 200 ethnic groups.  President Biya's
Beti ethnic group receives special preferences in all sectors
affected by the Government.  As a result, Betis hold a
preponderance of key positions in Government, the security
forces, and the military.  In other sectors, discrimination by
other ethnic groups is common.  Virtually all ethnic groups
tend to provide preferential treatment to fellow members of
their group when they are able to do so.

An important ethnic and political division falls along
linguistic lines rooted in the colonial period.  The Anglophone
minority (20 percent) often charges that the Francophone
majority does not share real power and that the Government
provides fewer economic benefits to English-speaking regions.
As noted in Section 3, the Government tried to prevent the
Second Annual Convention of the All-Anglophone Conference from
taking place in Bamenda, the capital of Northwest province.

Cameroon's indigenous population of Pygmies (a term which in
fact encompasses several different ethnic groups) primarily
resides in the forest areas of the south and southeast.  While
no legal discrimination exists, other groups often treat the
Baka as inferior and sometimes subject them to virtual slave
labor.

     People with Disabilities

The Constitution does not specifically protect the disabled.
Lack of facilities and care is particularly acute for the
mentally handicapped.  Although Cameroonian society is
generally tolerant of physical disabilities, which are
commonplace, the Government has not mandated accessibility for
the disabled.

Section 6  Worker Rights

     a.  The Right of Association

The 1992 Labor Code allows workers to form and join trade
unions of their own choosing.  It permits groups of at least 20
workers to organize a union but also requires registration with
the Ministry of Labor.  Provisions of the Labor Code do not
apply to civil servants, employees of the penitentiary system,
or workers responsible for national security.  Some sections of
the Labor Code have never taken effect, as not all of the
implementing decrees have been issued.  No new implementing
decrees were issued in 1994.

The National Union of Teachers of Higher Education (SYNES)
applied in 1991 for legal status as a public service
association, as did the National Union of Contract Officers and
State Agents in 1994.  At year's end, the Ministry of Public
Service had not accorded legal status to either union.  The
Government also never responded to a 1993 finding by the
International Labor Organization  Committee on Freedom of
Association that the Government was at fault for delays in
registering SYNES, and for failure to respond to charges that
its members were subject to harassment.

The Labor Code explicitly recognizes workers' right to strike
but only after mandatory arbitration.  It provides for the
protection of legal strikers and prohibits retribution against
them.

As the economy contracted, the Government and state-owned
enterprise sector fell behind in salary payments, and several
strikes occurred.  The civil servants' strike which had begun
in December 1993 continued into February 1994.  Since the
Government has never recognized civil servants' unions, it
considered the strike illegal.  In January, 11 members of the
National Union of Secondary School Teachers, SYNAES, were
arrested, detained for 5 days at provincial police
headquarters, and reportedly beaten.  Subsequently, over 150
secondary school teachers were dismissed, and at least 75
teachers had their salaries suspended.  In addition, the
president of SYNES and the president of the National Order of
Cameroon Teachers as well as other leading activists in the
strike were dismissed from their civil service positions.

Despite an agreement between the Government and public sector
employees in early March which barred any further punishment of
civil servants who took part in the strike, many public sector
employees complained of continued harassment and intimidation,
including 11 professors at the University of Yaounde, who were
suspended for "irregular absences."  The 11 who were suspended
were among the most active supporters of the strike.

The only labor confederation is the Confederation of
Cameroonian Trade Unions (CCTU), formerly affiliated with the
ruling CPDM party under the name Organization of Cameroonian
Trade Unions.  The CCTU formally declared its political
independence in 1992, but Secretary General Louis Sombes'
attempts to exert that independence met with considerable
government opposition in 1994.  In April the CCTU President,
also a member of the CPDM's Central Committee, dismissed Sombes
in spite of the opposition of the remaining members of the CCTU
Executive Committee.  When Sombes continued to exercise his
duties as Secretary General, police detained him and several of
his associates for several hours.  Meanwhile, a new secretary
general, appointed by the CCTU President, took office.

In May the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
(ICFTU) condemned the actions of the police and of the CCTU
President as "actions which violate internationally recognized
labor standards and practices as set out by conventions of the
International Labor Organization."  Nevertheless, in early
September, police broke into CCTU headquarters, changed the
locks on Sombes' office doors to bar his entry, and locked
Sombes and his family out of their CCTU-owned official
residence.  Although a Yaounde court subsequently ruled that
Sombes should be reinstated in his position, he had not
regained access to his office by the end of the year.

The CCTU is a member of the Organization of African Trade Union
Unity and the ICFTU.

     b.  The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively

The Labor Code provides for collective bargaining between
workers and management in local workplaces, as well as between
labor federations and business associations in each sector of
the economy.  Nevertheless, no sectoral collective bargaining
negotiations had been undertaken by the end of 1994.

The Labor Code prohibits antiunion discrimination, and
employers guilty of such discrimination are subject to fines
ranging up to the equivalent of $2,000 (1 million CFA).
However, employers found guilty of antiunion discrimination do
not have to reinstate the workers who have experienced
discrimination.  The Ministry of Labor reported no complaints
of such discrimination in 1994.

Three firms obtained approval in 1994 to operate under
Cameroon's Industrial Free Zone regime, and four more submitted
applications.  Free zone employers are exempt from some
provisions of the Labor Code but by law must respect all
internationally recognized worker rights.

     c.  Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor

Forced or compulsory labor is officially prohibited by the
Labor Code.  However, Cameroonian prisons continued to allow
inmates to be contracted out to private employers or used as
communal labor for municipal public works.

There are credible reports that slavery continues to be
practiced in the Lamidat of Rey Bouba, an isolated traditional
kingdom in North province.

     d.  Minimum Age for Employment of Children

The Labor Code establishes that no child may be employed before
the age of 14.  Ministry of Labor inspectors are responsible
for enforcing the minimum age of employment but lack resources
for an effective inspection program.  In rural areas many
children begin work at an early age on family farms.  Often,
rural youth, especially girls, are employed by relatives as
domestics, while many urban street vendors are under 14.

     e.  Acceptable Conditions of Work

Under the Labor Code, the Ministry of Labor is responsible for
setting a single minimum wage applicable nationwide in all
sectors.  In 1993 the Prime Minister failed to sign a decree
establishing the monthly minimum wage at approximately $80
(25,000 1993 CFA).  The devaluation of the CFA in January
rendered the proposed minimum wage unacceptable, and a new
minimum wage had not been negotiated by the end of 1994.

The Labor Code establishes a standard workweek of 40 hours in
public and private nonagricultural firms, and 48 hours in
agricultural and related activities.  The Code makes compulsory
at least 24 consecutive hours of rest per week.  The Government
sets health and safety standards, and the Ministry of Labor
Inspectors and Occupational Health Doctors are responsible for
monitoring these standards.  However, they lack the resources
for a comprehensive inspection program.