Cameroon: Partnering with Traditional Leaders to Change Local Customs
The traditional Ruler of Aboh in northwest Cameroon speaks at a meeting on gender-based violence as part of the Centre for Human Rights and Peace Advocacy (CHRAPA) initiative to work with traditional leaders. (Photo: CHRAPA)
In Cameroon, traditional leaders are using CEDAW to end local practices that are harmful to women. In 2007 civil society organizations in collaboration with government officials put together a training manual for traditional leaders called "CEDAW Made Easy." The manual provides information for traditional leaders to improve the lives of women in their communities and end traditional practices that are harmful to women, using examples of violations of women's human rights taken from the local context and citing CEDAW's universal human rights standards as a guideline for change.
Traditional leaders have an important role to play. After participating in the training program and learning more about women's human rights, they are acting as critical agents for change. As a result, certain harmful practices based on the idea of women's inferiority have been abolished in some regions, such as sitting and sleeping on the bare floor or being stripped of clothing upon the death of one's husband. Plans are underway to translate the manual into French in order to further extend the reach of the successful training in Cameroon.
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