A collective of Civil Society Organisations, lawyers, internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and national and foreign partners have urged the government of Cameroon to put in place regulation governing the existence of and catering for persons displaced internally.
Their demand, reached at, at the end of a workshop in April this year, has now been made official in a recent advocacy brief, with a call to action. The brief demands that government adopts a legal framework that will guarantee legal protection and assistance for internally displaced persons in Cameroon.
“Unlike the situation of refugees, there is no specialized domestic legal framework relating to IDPs in Cameroon,” they bemoaned.
Acknowledging the existence of some aspects of legislation touching on the plight of IDPs, they noted that they remain inadequate to sustain the burden. The enactment of a specific law, they remarked, would goal long way to strengthen social cohesion and enhance national development, given that it accords relevance to victims of crises.
“… On the basis of the foregoing, we call on government of Cameroon to sustain and expedite the process for the elaboration and adoption of a law on internal displacement in Cameroon.
The law, the advocacy brief read, should comprise certain basic elements representative and protective enough of persons displaced internally among the, is a clear definition of terms used in the internal displacement discourse, as well as a framework to limit or prevent internal displacement altogether.
The la, they added, should “provide for sustainable solutions vis-à-vis IDPs, as well as the returning, resettlement and social reintegration of IDPs”, as well as “reaffirm a human rights approach – focused on the socio-economic, civil, political and cultural rights of displaced persons, mindful of gender considerations …”
The last decade has witnessed a rocket-high number of internal displacements in Cameroon, spurred by multiple crises including armed conflicts in the Far North, East, and most recently, North West and South West regions.
According to the United Nations refugee agency, Cameroon hosts close to a million internally displaced persons with a majority of them being from the North West and South West regions. Over the years, the state of Cameroon and its partners have accelerated the return process of multiple persons displaced internally. Yet, the process is long and painstakingly slow and in some instances, arguably counterproductive. In the North West and South West regions for instance multiple communities remain engulfed in the armed conflict, leaving inhabitants helpless and near hopeless.
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