Brenda Yufeh
4 November 2009
Section 340 of the Cameroon Penal Code prescribes a five to 10 year imprisonment term for attempted infanticide.
Nowadays, it is common to hear radio announcements about babies who have been abandoned along the roadside or in a hospital immediately after delivery or some days later. The incident has become so common that some people see it as a way of life without knowing the legal consequences perpetrators face when trapped in the act. Abandoning a baby to its fate is an offence and punishable under Section 340 of the Cameroon Penal Code with 5 to10 years imprisonment.
Barrister Fombe A Gremo of the Muna, Muna and Associate in Yaounde says the law draws attention to the Act of Infanticide which defines "infanticide" as a specific crime equivalent to manslaughter that can only be committed by the mother intentionally killing her own baby during the first 12 months of its life. Infanticide, the law states, is that practice of someone intentionally killing an infant; often it is the mother who commits the act. Barrister Fombe says the practice of infanticide is common and has taken many forms. Child sacrifices to supernatural figures or forces, regardless of the cause. In other cultures, the issue of infanticide includes the intentional killing of children older than 12 months.
The barrister noted that a frequent method of infanticide practised in Cameroon is simply the abandonment of an infant on the streets, leaving it to die by exposure (hypothermia, hunger, thirst, or animal attack). The barrister says in a situation where the child is abandoned but does not die, someone may want to term it attempted infanticide. But in the case where the child is abandoned and later dies, it is called infanticide. Whatever the case, the legal expert says the act of someone abandoning a child is what gives the appellation infanticide because the intention of doing so is probably to cause death by hypothermia and in whatever situation (attempted infanticide or infanticide), the punishment remains the same because the law in Cameroon states that anyone or accomplice that causes death to his child after birth shall be imprisoned with 5-10 years.
Diverse and often contradictory explanations have been proposed to account for infanticide such as population control, customs and taboos, psychological, psychiatric and genetic and sex selection. Although throughout history, infanticide has been common, it is not acceptable in Cameroon as the Penal Code stipulates punishment for those who abandon infants placing them at risk of becoming the indirect victims of infanticide.
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