Empowering Women Through Legal Education

As a guest with the International Federation of Women Lawyers – Cameroon (FIDA Cameroon), it was insightful to see how such a prominent organization advancing social justice through advocacy in Cameroon approaches legal education for empowerment. Currently, FIDA Cameroon works with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Protection of the Family (MINPROFF) to provide training of trainers on the legal frameworks that aim to protect women and young girls. One of the issues that keeps arising is the need for women’s rights advocacy groups to leverage legalities and their interpretations under the law in Cameroon. This is the case when dealing with issues such as marital status and rights, rape, sexual and physical abuse, inheritance, and domestic violence – basically, access to justice for women and young girls.

My recent article on a lexical analysis of comprehensive contention law concepts using online resources illuminated this critical issue. While discussions were largely centered around the ins and outs of contention law in the common law legal system of Cameroon, it gave participants an idea of which laws to look out for, how to research them, and also how to consolidate their knowledge of existing laws to further their social justice advocacy efforts. Poised to further the legal empowerment efforts of women and young girls through the interpretation of laws on contentious issues, it is imperative that resources like these exist to equip local women’s rights organizations with the knowledge they need to continue to advocate for and protect women and girls’ rights under the law. This is where legal aid comes in.

Legal aid will help to increase the knowledge of legal aid recipients, especially women, with respect to rights, and how to protect these rights under the law. For example, the legal provisions that the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Protection of the Family (MINPROFF) and FIDA Cameroon refer to when assisting women are the same legal provisions that we discuss in depth in the legal article. Understanding how to interpret law and its applications will help to empower women and young girls in Cameroon to advocate for themselves and to further the goals and objectives of FIDA Cameroon and other women’s rights organizations.

I recall when I first became aware of contention law, or “contentious law,” as it is more colloquially called. It all started with a seminar focused on a wide range of legal concepts; the goal was to highlight the importance of knowing which laws govern what. One of the concepts we discussed was “contention law” and while there has been some progress made in defining this term, including this definition by the Cameroon Bar Association, the concept continues to lack a unified definition. For this reason, I endeavored to define it and to explain the differences between civil law, common law, and other sub-categories of contention law found in various legal systems around the world – especially in Cameroon.

As demonstrated in my article, the common law legal system in Cameroon has key tenets, one being the disregard of civil law principles that undergird traditional legal practices. Instead, local courts tend to favor inconsistencies in the application of laws with substantive content. Thus, defining contention law becomes important, as it provides a platform for not only looking at the law itself but also analyzing how the law is interpreted, intentionally or not.