CHRDA says children should go back to school in Cameroon’s Anglophone Regions for the 2021/2022 Academic Year
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[Post as published on CHRDA website] CHRDA calls on the State and Non-State Actors involved in the ongoing armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon to allow the peaceful resumption of schools for the 2021/2022 Academic Year.It is regrettable that within the context of the Anglophone Crisis, the domain of education has continuously been used as a weapon of war since 2016 in the North West and South West Regions of the country. The majority of pupils/students have not gone to school for over five years. Another school year is about to start and yet no concrete measures are being taken by the parties to the conflict to ensure that schools can effectively resume in all subdivisions. In the last academic year, some factions of the separatist movements called for school resumption, many schools opened their doors and the academic year went smoothly, although some unfortunate incidents were recorded including the massacre of at least eight school children of Mother Francisca International College in Kumba Sub Division by unidentified gunmen.
As a Human Rights organization, it is our hope that schools resume effectively in all the subdivisions of the Anglophone communities. We call on all stakeholders home and abroad to join CHRDA in a special Back To School Campaign to encourage the warring parties to facilitate a peaceful resumption of schools in the troubled regions. This campaign is aimed at sensitizing parents, government, and separatist activists in the Anglophone regions on the need for creating safe spaces for children to go back to school.
We value education as a fundamental human right. Any group that opposes education in any form is violating this right, recognized in a number of international conventions such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognizing the right to free and compulsory primary education for all and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its Article 26. The right to education has also been reaffirmed by UNESCO in the 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education, the 1981 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.
We call on separatist leaders to direct their fighters to stop attacking academic institutions, teachers, and students. We also call on the government to enhance efforts toward ensuring the security of school infrastructures, teachers, and students in the Anglophone regions, while appealing to parents to send their children to school
Berinyuy Cajetan is the founder and publisher of Human Rights and Legal Research Centre (HRLRC) since 2017. He has intensive experience in strategic communications for Civil Society Organizations, campaign and advocacy, and social issues. He has an intensive experiencing in human rights monitoring, documentation and reporting.
