The Human Rights Watch, an International Human Rights Organization have recommended several ways to hold perpetrators of Human Rights violations accountable, particularly in the area of education in their latest report. The Human Rights report indicates that since 2016 only 1 out of 3 schools has been effective in the English Speaking regions of Cameroon.

The Human Rights body after a detailed report recommended the following points to various stakeholders at the national and international levels including the separatists/Ambazonian groups and the Cameroonian governments. You can click HERE to read the detail report.

Key Recommendations

To Leaders of Separatist Groups

• End the school boycott as well as attacks and threats against students, teachers, education officials, and schools, publicly announcing that this policy and tactics have been ended.
• Issue statements and disseminate pamphlets, leaflets, and instructions among members and fighters explaining and endorsing the need to comply with international human rights law.

To Armed Separatist Groups’ Fighters

• Cease all human rights abuses, including killing, torturing, kidnapping, extorting, and threatening civilians, including students and teachers.
• Immediately cease all recruitment of children under 18 years old.
• Immediately release all kidnapped civilians, including students and teachers.
• Immediately cease using schools for any purpose, including for bases, storage, and detaining individuals.

To the Cameroonian Government

• Ensure students deprived of educational facilities because of the crisis are promptly given access to alternative accessible forms of education, such as community education, distance learning, and temporary learning schools or spaces, with suitable equipment and adequately trained teachers. Education should be accessible to children with disabilities.
• Establish a credible and inclusive reparations program, through a transparent and participatory process, to support victims of attacks on education and their families. Such a program should be sensitive to the needs of women and men, boys and girls, and address the needs of students and families living with disabilities and those in hard-to-reach areas.
• Consider establishing two special task forces, one to assess and make recommendations regarding investigations into attacks on education and prosecutions of perpetrators; the second to further the re-establishment and protection of access to education for all on an equal basis (see Section XI: “The Way Forward.”)

To the Cameroonian Police and Gendarmerie

• Effectively investigate, for the purpose of prosecuting, government agents, members of the security forces, separatist leaders, and fighters responsible for human rights crimes committed in the Anglophone regions, including attacks on students, teachers, and schools.

To the Cameroonian Judicial Authorities

• Ensure victims of human rights crimes by all sides have access to effective and accessible remedies, including complaint mechanisms, witness protection, and the opportunity to participate in a transparent judicial process.

To the Cameroonian Ministers of Basic, Secondary, and Higher Education

• Effectively implement the Safe Schools Declaration, and work with relevant authorities, community leaders, and parents to ensure better security for schools in the Anglophone regions.
• Ensure teachers and administrators are not pressured to reopen schools in insecure zones without appropriate, effective security measures.
• Expand and improve efforts to collect data on attacks on students, teachers, and schools and the use of schools by armed separatist groups, including the dates and locations of attacks, types of school attacked, disaggregated information about victims and suspected perpetrators, and the number of students and teachers affected.

To the Cameroonian Security Forces

• Ensure security operations in the Anglophone regions respect and protect human rights, including by abiding by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) resolution on the Prohibition of Excessive Use of Force by Law Enforcement Officers in African States and the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Firearms, respecting principles of necessity and proportionality, and deploying military judicial police officers on operations to monitor the conduct of security forces, report abusive members to commanding officers, and advise commanding officers on human rights issues.
• Ensure that, if armed forces personnel are engaged in security tasks related to schools, their presence within school grounds or buildings be avoided if at all possible, including for accommodation. Where necessary, establish wider security perimeters in neighborhoods around schools, rather than directly outside schools, to minimize disruption to children’s education and avoid compromising the school’s civilian status.

To the African Union (AU)

• Advocate for more comprehensive and sustained measures to protect education from attack in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions by calling on the Cameroonian government to prioritize security of schools, students, and teachers, including the assessment of any security risks for schools which are currently open.
• Engage proactively with the Cameroonian government and support its efforts to expand and strengthen monitoring and reporting on attacks on education and military use of schools, including by collecting and reporting disaggregated data. 
• Encourage and support the Cameroonian government to implement fully the commitments contained in the Safe Schools Declaration at all levels of education.

To the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) and to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR)

• Call on the Cameroonian government to conduct impartial, transparent, and independent investigations into attacks against students and teachers, including physical assaults, killings, abductions, threats, and attacks against school buildings. Urge Cameroonian authorities to publicize the findings of these investigations, prosecute those responsible in fair trials, and incorporate lessons learned into future protection measures and strategies to prevent attacks against education.

To the AU Peace and Security Council

• Include the situation in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions as a priority item on the AU peace and security agenda, request a briefing by the ACHPR and the ACERWC on the human rights and humanitarian situation in the Anglophone regions, and demand an end to human rights abuses.
• Unequivocally condemn attacks against education in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions and play a more assertive role, including by applying coercive political and diplomatic tools at its disposal, such as imposing targeted sanctions on separatist leaders and fighters responsible for attacks against students, teachers, and schools.

To the United Nations (UN)

To the UN Secretary-General

• Continue to include Cameroon as a situation of concern in the annual report on children and armed conflict to the UN Security Council. Include in the annex of the report any parties engaging in violations against children. Ensure voices and experiences of children with disabilities are included.

To the UN Security Council

• Formally include Cameroon as a priority item on its agenda, request a briefing by the UN Secretary-General on the situation in Cameroon, and demand an end to human rights abuses.
• Establish a sanctions regime in Cameroon, including targeted sanctions such as travel bans and asset freezes, against individuals credibly implicated in serious abuses, including attacks on education.

To the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict

• Ensure accurate, public monitoring and reporting on threats and attacks on students, teachers, and schools as well as the military use of schools and use of schools by armed separatist groups.

To the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

• Improve its mechanism in cooperation with NGOs and other UN agencies to monitor and report threats and attacks on students, teachers, and schools, and the use of schools by armed groups and other grave violations against children committed in the context of the Anglophone crisis.

To the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

• Make publicly available the findings of its 2019 investigations and any future investigations into the Anglophone crisis.
• Actively monitor the situation in the Anglophone regions.

To the UN Country Team in Cameroon

• Under the formal Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism on children and armed conflict, actively document and verify incidents of grave violations against children, including threats and attacks on students, teachers, and schools, and the use of schools by armed groups, and provide this information to the UN Special Representative to the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict.

To Cameroon’s International Bilateral Partners, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union

• Privately and publicly urge the Cameroonian government and security forces to adopt and support the implementation of the above recommendations.
• Urge the national authorities to empower the investigative police, including its forensic criminal evidence gathering, judicial investigation, prosecutorial, and trial capacity and provide targeted and specifically monitored support.
• If established, provide technical and financial support to the special task forces on attacks on education and to reparations program to support victims of attacks on education and their families.
• Ensure any support to the Cameroonian security forces does not contribute to or facilitate human rights abuses.
• Implement targeted sanctions, such as travel bans and asset freezes, against individuals credibly implicated in serious abuses, including attacks against education.

To The World Bank

• Ensure that a significant amount of the US $97 million provided to Cameroon’s government in support of education sector reform is used to improve access to safe schools in the Anglophone regions, including by assisting displaced students and teachers, rebuilding and repairing damaged or destroyed school buildings, supporting, if established, the special task forces on attacks on education and the reparations program to support victims of attacks on education and their families.

You can click HERE to read the detail report.