The Stigma of Childlessness

Rarely in Cameroon does a week go by without one hearing of an attempted child theft or of the disappearance of a child. The most popular of this is the Vanessa Tchatchou affair((Read my blog post on this affair at:www.amplifyyourvoice.org/u/Gastonkwa/2012/312/vanessa-Her-Stolen-Baby-and-the-plight-of-women).The theft of Vanessa’s baby is not an isolated case in Cameroon, in the past 2 months the local media has reported  more than 2 cases of child theft(http://www.cameroon-info.net/stories/0,31995,@,douala-equinoxe-tv-aide-a-retrouver-un-bebe-vole.html, http://news.jetcamer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=581). This rising rate of acts of child thievery in Cameroon exposes the ugly face of a phenomenon that has eaten deep into the fabrics of the Cameroonian society.

While poverty, greed, impunity, and illiteracy are to blame for these rampant and scandalous acts of child thievery, the stigmatization of women who have not given birth or cannot conceive and bear children carries an even heavier blame as illustrated by the declaration of Thérèse Diane Mouli Nguetti to the press. Caught with a child she had stolen, she declared that,"At 18, I had a child who died three months later. Since that time until when I stole the baby, I was childless. I was told this was the consequence of a bad fate that was thrown on me "(http://www.cameroon-info.net/stories/0,31995,@,douala-equinoxe-tv-aide-a-retrouver-un-bebe-vole.html)

CHILDLESSNESS: MORE THAN A BURDEN;A BONDAGE

Cameroon has the second highest rate of childlessness in the world. Demographic and health surveys carried out in Cameroon between 1994 and 2000  revealed that 7.3% of women  were childless with 22% of this cases identified among women aged 25-49 years(http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/infertility/DHS-CR9.pdf)

Given the importance attached to having children and the fact that, not been able to conceive and bear children in Cameroon is often attached to witchcraft and largely seen as been a punishment from God (or a supernatural force), women   who are suffering from primary or secondary infecundity are subjected to all sorts of treatments and are victims of the worst form of abuses that anyone can possibly imagine.

In fact Demographic and Health surveys carried out in Cameroon (1994-2000) revealed that 38 Percent of women were divorced or separated because they were childless, primarily sterile, or secondarily sterile. These surveys also revealed that 69 percent of women in a polygynous first union were childless or primarily sterile. The rate of divorce and marrying of another wife by men for reasons related to their female partners being childless or sterile are only a visible tip of the ice berg as these women are often repudiated by their husbands (most marriages in Cameroon are not legalized so the law on divorce will not apply in cases like these), not allowed to participate in some community activities, and even buried in a disgraceful way-behind the house and with a small stone in one of her palms. As if to wipe off memories of their existence from people’s mind and tell the dead person that since she was not able to procreate, the only way to thank her is to give her that small stone.

WHEN CHILDLESSNESS TURNS INTO HOPELESSNESS

Thus humiliated and abused, these women are willing to do anything to get a child, including stealing one and all means for them  are right to disentangle themselves from the bondage of guilt that society has plunge them into. The means could thus range from adopting a child, as does 53% of childless women in Cameroon (according to the above mentioned Demographic and Health survey), or simulate a pregnancy at the end of which they either pay people to steal a new born baby in one of Cameroon’s poorly equipped and unsafe maternities or do this themselves(as has been the case of 2 of the cases reported by the media recently).

STIGMA IS THE REAL CULPRIT

While Vanessa continue to weep and hope to one day hold her baby in her arms again, everyone in Cameroon seems to be looking for the culprit. While this is the right thing to do, I believe the attention is elsewhere and that if nothing is done more children like Vanessa’s will be stolen and the culprits never brought to book.

The real culprits of this acts of child thievery are not  in my opinion their perpetrators but stigma attached to not being able to conceive and bear children, discrimination,  poverty, illiteracy, the government, and all who watch this happen  without doing anything for this evil practice to be eradicated.

EDUCATION IS KEY TO ERADICATE STIGMA

Should we fold our arms and watch? I strongly believe NO! Indifference to the suffering of others is not to be tolerated in this age. Gone are those days. Today is Vanessa’s turn, who knows whose turn it is next? There is hope and there is a possible way out of child theft. That solution is to be found in the eradication of practices and change of policies that stigmatizes and discriminates against women who can’t conceive and bear children as well as retard development.

In its 2011 Rural Poverty Report, the IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) revealed that despite growing urbanization, 70 % of the world’s poorest people still live in rural areas with a majority of them women. Given the high level of illiteracy in these communities and the predominance of traditional and religious beliefs that  are hostile to childless women, I am convinced that there exist no better way in my opinion to eradicate despicable practices such as those described above and change mentalities than through education. 

Educating and sensitizing rural community dwellers on the ‘true’ causes of in fecundity is not only providing them the tools, strategies, and means to become active citizens through shunning the above mentioned practices, but above all contribute in raising their awareness on how some common causes of infertility could be prevented and that infertility  is no death sentence.

Through education and sensitization, inhabitants of communities where childbearing is considered as the main function of a woman, will come to understand that women are meant to do much more than bear children and this will go a long way to increasing their esteem for the great works and intellectual contributions of women to the progress of humanity.

This article was first published on amplifyyouvoice.org and can be read at: http://www.amplifyyourvoice.org/u/Gastonkwa/2012/4/12/The-Stigma-of-Childlessness