BY ALICE NJI
Of recent the phenomenon of the practice of same sex and bisexuality is gaining momentum in Cameroon. Even though some gay rights defenders in Cameroon have disclosed that practicing same sex relation is their fundamental human rights, government, and some religious bodies like the Roman Catholic Church in Cameroon, through their Bishops, have condemned it with the strongest energy.
This is why the government has launched a fresh manhunt for those practicing it.
At press time the government had launched a fresh pursuit for their arrest for them to face prosecution. Those whom the government is hunting for include Mingang Nee Feline Flore epse Fabo, Effala Doris, Akanja Samuel Loydevic Zidane, amongst others. They have been declared wanted and the military keeps making impromptu patrols around their neighbourhoods to arrest them. A huge amount of money has announced for anybody who can disclose their whereabouts.
Homosexuality is illegal and criminalised in Cameroon. Culprits can be punished with jail term ranging from six months to five years and a fine of from FCFA 20,000 to FCFA 200,000, according to section 347-1 of Law No. 2016/007 of 12 July 2016 of the Penal Code and Law No.2010/012 of 21 December 2010 on cyber crime and cyber criminality in its section 83-1, which criminalises online same sex proposition to a person of their sex through electronic communication with an imprisonment of one to two years and a fine of FCFA 500,000 to FCFA 1,000,000.
Reports from Molyko in Buea, chief town of the South West Region in Cameroon indicate that the situation of one alleged lesbian and bisexual, whose name THE SUN got as Mingang Nee Feline Flore epse Fabo is in every lip, coupled with the fact that she is a bisexual. THE SUN learnt that though she was married, she was into a same sex relationship with another woman. Reports say her same sex and bisexual secrecy was uncovered by her husband, who discovered her conversations with her same sex partner in her phone and some photos.
Her husband was frustrated by this unholy situation which he considered as a betrayal taking into consideration the efforts he was putting in their union.
Disgusted by this disgraceful development, the sister-in-law, who was living with them, seized the photos and presented them to their mother and siblings, who didn’t take it lightly. Sources say Mingang was disgraced and molested in front of mammoth crowd, considering the fact that same sex and bisexual relation is a taboo in their community.
Thanks to the intervention of a policeman, she was rescued. THE SUN gathered that her photos were later shared amongst members of both families and other friends. Things later became worse for Mingang. She became an outcast to the public.
Her nude photos were displaced in the public. Her parents disowned her. A petition against her was addressed to a local chief in Molyko to expel her from Molyko-Buea and the entire neighbourhood wanted her to be lynched so as to act as a deterrent for those who are dreaming to be lesbians and homosexuals.
Family sources say since Mingang is considered an outcast in Molyko-Buea and was no longer welcomed in Buea, she relocated to Douala and since then her whereabouts remains cloudy.
As we went to Press, reports from Molyko –Buea said security operatives keep making impromptu patrols around their neighbourhood in search of Mingang Nee Feline Flore epse Fabo since she has been declared wanted.
It should be recalled that according to gay rights defender, Barrister Alice Nkom, for the past years homosexuals and lesbians have seen themselves thrown behind bars and jailed, which according to her, is wrong because homosexuality is a human right.
“Those who find pleasure in the practice, their human rights must be respected,” she said.
Criminalising homosexuality, she said, is bad law, thus repugnant to natural justice equity and good conscience.
Barrister Nkom disclosed that in July 2013, prominent gay rights activists and journalist, Eric Lembembe, was found dead. His neck and feet appeared to have been broken and his face, hands and feet burnt with an electric iron.
In 2021, a Cameroonian court in the economic capital, Douala, slammed a five-year jail term and a fine of FCFA 200,000 and a cost of FCFA 29,300 on two men, Njueukomloic Midrel aka Shakiro and Mouthe Roland aka Patricia, found guilty of attempted homosexuality practice.
A prominent human rights lawyer and a gay rights activist, Barrister Atoh Walter Tchemi, a Kumba-based legal practitioner and Head of The Time Law Firm, was recently attacked, molested and tortured by unidentified individuals for defending a homosexual, Fonya Cornelius, who was jailed by the Limbe Court of First Instance.
