Mentally ill women in Cmr city at risk of sexual assault

Emelda Awambeng is 32 years old, but she rarely leaves her house alone after dark. Even in the daytime, she asks her mothers permission before she goes anywhere."I am afraid to go out because men will be calling me to come and take money, and I don’t want to take their money", she says.

Men use money to lure mentally ill women to drink alcohol and put them in vulnerable situations, says Emeldas mother, Beatrice Awambeng. They make lewd comments, and if the women come near them, they may try to sexually assault them.

Emelda Awambeng has never been formally diagnosed, but her family understands her to be developmentally disabled.

Among the vulnerable women of Cameroon, Emelda Awambeng is lucky. Her family is devoted to protecting her, and she hasn't attempted to leave home.

Mentally ill women who are not closely protected by their families often face sexual harassment, government officials and caregivers say. Women who wander the city, whether because they are homeless or because they choose not to stay in their homes, often face the worst fates.

Its impossible to know how many people in Cameroon are mentally ill. Very few studies have been done to identify who they are, where they live and what illnesses they have. There are just seven psychiatrists in Cameroon, a country of over 22 million people, one of them, Dr. Jean-Pierre Olivier Kamga Olen, confirmed in an email to GPJ.

Thats less than the average rate for low-income countries, where gross national income per capita is $1,045 or less. Kenya, a low-income country with a population of over 44 million, has almost 80 psychiatrists.

Until recently, there were no psychiatry training programs in Cameroon. Kamga Olen, like his nations other psychiatrists, studied abroad. In 2010, the University of Yaound, located in Cameroons capital, opened a school for psychiatric training, Kamga Olen says. The World Health Organization previously reported that the country was without such a program.

The country now has eight psychiatry residents, he says.

But hurdles remain: A 2011 World Health Organization study found that Cameroon has no federal legislation dedicated to mental health. Cameroonian doctors and nurses are inclined to emigrate. According to the International Organization for Migration, 46 percent of Cameroonian doctors and 19 percent of nurses emigrated between 1995 and 2005.

George Kisob, an officer of Child Protection Services at the Mezam divisional delegation of the Ministry of Social Affairs, says his office keeps no statistics on mentally ill women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted. Such cases are not reported, he says.

The cases we have handled are the cases where the sexual assault leads to a pregnancy, Kisob says. This year, the office has handled two such cases, he says.

Mentally ill women are more vulnerable to sexual violence than other women because they tend to be less assertive, Kisob says. Some don’t even understand that they are being molested. The perpetrators of such crimes are most often drunk men and boys, Kisob says. He adds that no one has been charged with sexual assault in such a case.