Marital Rape and the Third-Class Citizenship of Married Women in Cameroon

Abstract

Cameroon has a Constitutional obligation to promote gender equality and to protect its citizens. Additionally, by being a party to a number of international instruments prohibiting violence against women, Cameroon additionally has international obligations to its female citizens. However, married women are treated as third-class citizens in Cameroon. Men are beneficiaries of all of the protections of international and domestic statutory and customary law. Unmarried women are protected by statute from discriminatory treatment, but face disparate treatment in customary mechanism. Married women are further marginalized by Cameroon’s statutes, and in particular by Article 297, which legalizes the rape of a woman by her husband. This note identifies the gaps and inconsistencies in Cameroon’s laws with respect to marital rape suggests ways in which the Cameroonian government could change its laws in order to comply with Constitutional and international obligations.

Keywords: Cameroon, marital rape, women's rights, CEDAW, human rights