Sylvie Schuster on Women’s Experiences of the Abortion Law in Cameroon

While prosecutions of women who have had an illegal abortion are rarein Cameroon, women who have a legitimate claim to a legal abortion,e.g. following rape, can rarely take advantage of it. This is becausethe law in Cameroon is not applied, either when it is violated or whenit is indicated. This paper examines the histories of four young womenwho became pregnant and had an abortion in the Anglophone region of theCameroon Grassfields. Three of them became pregnant following rape orsexual coercion, in one case by the girl's priest, in the second caseby her employer's son, and in the third case by a stranger. The fourthyoung woman, who sold sex for survival money and food, had twoabortions while in prison for committing infanticide following a failedattempt to abort an earlier pregnancy. The four young women wereinterviewed as part of a qualitative, hospital-based study among 65women who had had abortions in 1996-97. The women's affecting personalhistories illuminate the reality of living under a restrictive abortionlaw, the troubling conditions in which they have to manage their lives,and the harsh circumstances in which they become pregnant and seek (butmay not find) a safe abortion.