Cameroon: Les Droit Humans Comptent!

Calorine Kenkem of the Cameroonian Network of Associations of People Living with HIV.

It can be a very powerful tool for advocacy when people living with HIV can document human rights violations that they experience in their own communities – particularly when they don’t shy away from what some may see as sensitive topics, like the experiences of HIV-positive men who have sex with men, according to Calorine Kenkem of Le Réseau Camerounais des Associations de Personnes Vivants avec le VIH (the Cameroonian Network of Associations of People Living with HIV) or RéCAP+. She was speaking at the 3rd HIV Leadership through Accountability (LTA) Planning and Review Meeting, held this July in Nairobi, Kenya.

HATIP has previously described the HIV LTA programme, which is supporting a number of national networks of people living with HIV to perform research to provide an evidence base for advocacy in their respective countries. The programme is described in much more detail in a report from the LTA meeting, which is now online.

The research is facilitated through the use of tools developed by the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+) and their partners. In this particular case, RéCAP was using the Human Rights Count! Tool.

 “The Declaration of Human Rights was integrated into Cameroon’s Constitution in 1996, so theoretically, the equality for human rights is recognised, at least on paper” Kenkem said, though she noted there were no specific laws protecting the rights of people living with HIV (PLHIV).  However, in practice, human rights violations persist, and one of RéCAP’s goals is to reduce human rights violations against people living with HIV. To inform and drive their advocacy, the organisation first needed to generate evidence on current human rights abuses related to HIV in Cameroon.

They generated this evidence with the Human Rights Count! Tool, with trained PLHIV using a questionnaire to interview other PLHIV about whether they had experienced human rights violations.

The project began with the selection of study sites and population, choosing PLHIV associations and care sites in areas with the highest burden of HIV (the study eventually enrolled 200 PLHIV). Then they identified key partners – one legal consultant and a research organisation – to help manage the project. They posted an advert to the member PLHIV networks to recruit the interviewers, using criteria such as: experience working with organisations; some knowledge of human rights; a high school degree; and an understanding of human rights. A team of interviewers were hired and provided with three days’ training. A consultant was then employed to review and analyse the data. The study was then performed and data from the interviews were entered into the database. The data were then analysed, the report written – and is currently being reviewed before distribution.

Kenkem said they didn’t encounter any major difficulties – though a little additional training may have been needed for some of the interviewers, who may have confused human rights violations in general and those which were specific to one’s HIV status. Out of 200 interviews 95 HIV-specific violations were documented.

These included the following:

Violation of the right to privacy: 'I went to meet with the pastor to ask him to pray for me. He demanded that I confess before the whole Church, recognising that I have committed fornication.'

The right to home and property: 'After the death of my husband, his family called me a witch, a criminal. They hurled insults and forced me out of the house at night. They claimed and took all the property that he had left.'

Violation of health rights: 'In 2007, I got sick. When I arrived at the hospital, the nurse said she would not see me because I had brought my illness on myself. The whole town knew that I'm gay.'

Violation of the right to work: 'I worked in an embassy as a secretary for three years. When I was diagnosed with HIV, I was simply and purely dismissed without any compensation.'

The study made several recommendations that will be important for advocacy in Cameroon:

• Human rights must be promoted in the response to HIV: demand that staff at healthcare facilities provide universal access to high-quality care for all PLHIV;
• Train PLHIV on human rights and how to obtain justice and strengthen the collaboration between RéCAP+, support structures and legal services;
• Set up a database on the rights of PLHIV in order to provide data to support advocacy with policy makers;
• Strengthen working relationships between government, development partners, civil society and the media to promote human rights for PLHIV;
• Lobby public and private institutions to formulate public policies and strategies of PLHIV against the HIV-related discrimination.

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