How law and custom serve to disempower women in Cameroon

References

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• For example, as practised by the Kom tribe in the NW Province.
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• Article 1395 deals with the nontransferability of rights created by matrimonial agreement. This covers prenuptial agreements. The husband, by law, acquires wide powers to manage real property held in the common ownership of both spouses. These powers to manage then become non-transferable rights arising from matrimonial agreement.
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• Received law applicable since independence in the French-speaking provinces of Cameroon in the absence of uniform national law.
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• In spite of a French law of 1938 that permits a wife to exercise commercial activity.
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• De Francesco v. Barnum (1890) 45 ChD 430. A girl 14 years of age bound herself by an apprenticeship deed to the plaintiff for seven years to be taught stage dancing if she agreed inter alia that she would not marry during the apprenticeship and would not accept professional engagements without the plaintiff's permission. The court decided that the contract disfavoured the minor and was therefore not binding.
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• Les Fernmes et les Filles d'Afrfque: Briser le Cycle de la Discrimination. 1992; Organisation of African Unity/UNICEF.Y. Nkouendjin. Les Femmes clans le Cameroun: La Recherche de son Droit de la Famille. See also, 1975. Paris Nkouendjin states that the woman's sphere of action has always been considered to be the home with childbearing as her main role.
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• E.N. Ngwafor. Family Law in Anglophone Cameroon. 1993; University of Regina Press: Regina, Canada.
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• Appeal No BCA/62/86 (unreported).
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• Ekor Tarh J. in the 1975 case of Thomas Ngo v. Moses Lukong and another. Appeal No BCA/10/75 (unreported), see Chief Justice Rayner's Report on Land Tenure in West Africa (1898). See also: Speech of Lord Haldane, Privy Council case of Amadu Tijani v. Secretary Southern Nigeria (1921) 2 AC 339.
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• Cameroonian Constitution, 1972. Recently revised by Law 96/06, 1996.
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• Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNGA Res. 271 A (III), UNDoc. A/810. Article 16.1. was incorporated as an integral part of the preamble to the Cameroonian Constitution.
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• See Article 52(1), Ordinance No 81-2,29 June 1981.
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• Per Justice Nganje, in ‘Motanga v. Motanga’ Suit No HCB/2/76 (unreported). Cited in Ngwafor EN ([11] above).
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• The Civil Status Ordinance, 1981, uses the word ‘polygamy’, which means a plurality of spouses, in contradistinction to monogamy. However, what was meant was ‘polygyny’ — a plurality of wives — which is a gender-specific term.
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• Article 359, Cameroon Penal Code.
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• The amounts in CFA are equal to US $50 and $200.
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• Considered assault occasioning harm under Article 277 of the Cameroon Penal Code.
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