Walking on both feet: allowing women to fully play their role in our country (Women empowerment)
Despite an estimated literacy rate of 75% for the whole country, 50% of illiterates are women who are strongly affected by cultural constraints and the lack of specific government policies.
Women, who are often as well trained as their male counterparts and are very professional at work, often receive
lower wages than their counterparts. Often, they do not receive the promotion they deserve if they do not accept degrading or even traumatic compromises.
On the political front, women are brilliant, but they are held in the background, confined to entertainment and
applause, and often placed on the electoral lists in positions where they have no chance of being elected. Violence against women is gaining ground in our country.
We will design the appropriate public policies to enable Cameroonian women to obtain their full place and play their
full role in the new society that we propose. In this perspective, we will work for:
- Allow the woman to participate in the outposts to the construction of the new Cameroon.
- Redress an absurd situation of inferiority where the woman is still maintained.
- Enable women to recover the fullness of their rights to promote an acceleration of economic growth.
Equality between man and woman: an inviolable principle
- Make equal rights effective between women and men.
- Give young women and men the same educational opportunities.
- Translate to the facts equality of wages between women and men.
- Promote and better treat the woman’s maternity, which is a responsibility for the benefit of the community.
Emancipation of women through education
We consider that education is the main lever for the emancipation of women in our country, for their insertion in the modern circuit of production and for their decisive contribution to the general progress of the nation. To ensure the emancipation of women through education, the following measures will be adopted:
- Put in place a vigorous policy of schooling for Cameroonian girls from all regions of the country, given that cultural specificities cannot constitute in any way an acceptable obstacle to this policy.
- Schooling will be compulsory for all young men and women until the age of 16, at least. We will fight against early marriages that are so damaging to women.
- Put in place family planning and carry out campaigns in schools to inform young people of the risks of early
pregnancy. In this regard, sex education classes will be introduced early enough in the school curriculum to train girls to the knowledge of their body. - Strengthen awareness campaigns for young women and men on contraceptive techniques to reduce the
number of unwanted pregnancies.
Motherhood, a primary responsibility for the benefit of society
We make a firm commitment to make Caesarean section free of charge so that no woman ever dies in childbirth in
our country for lack of means to pay the costs of such an operation, or she will lose her baby for the same reasons.
The following additional measures will be adopted:
- Introduce paternity leave to encourage men to support their wives after childbirth, so that the woman is not
alone in caring for little children. - Put in place a childcare policy to allow women to go to work more freely.
A promotion of women’s activities
We will implement a policy to promote women’s activities by creating rural development micro-bank or urban micro-finance structures in the most remote rural areas and in densely populated urban areas. The following measures will be implemented with a view to promoting women’s activities:
- Encourage our many women today in the so-called informal sector to join a legal framework that will allow them to benefit from social security.
- Set up programmes to help our women professionalise the management of their small businesses, which today
provide the essential income of many families. - Put in place the appropriate technical and financial support for the development of women in the circuits of
industry and the tertiary sectors.
A leading role in society
We will train women to play leading roles in society in all sectors: politics, business, industry, research and innovation, and so on. To this end:
- We will increase the number of women in government to positions that are not dedicated or merely symbolic.
- We will increase the number of women in parliament, at various levels of the administrative hierarchy, and at the head of public companies.
