'I look forward to a country of women who have autonomy over their bodies'

Over the past several years, Brenda Formin has become known as one of Cameroon's and West Africa's most prominent youth activists. The co-founder of a feminist movement-building platform called KUKING'A, Formin has dedicated herself to gender equality, including adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights, also known as ASRHR.

We spoke with Formin, who is also a MILEAD fellow (https://moremiinitiative.org/) and an Obama Foundation Leaders Africa Fellow, and was recently added to the Exemplars in Global Health ASRHR Technical Advisory Group, about the lives and health of adolescent girls in Cameroon and West Africa, as well as her hopes on this year's International Women's Day.

You’re one of the founders of KUKING'A – could you tell us more about your platform and what you’re hoping to accomplish?

Formin: KUKING'A means ‘to protect’ in the Swahili language of Kenya and the Lunda language of Zambia. It's an initiative I co-founded with a Zambian-based feminist named Ann Holland. It's a platform for young African feminists to gain the essential skills they require to run effective social movements, as well as effectively advocate for social justice causes they are passionate about. It's centered on feminist movement building, capacity building, and community strengthening, as well as documentation and storytelling. [Our aim is for] at least 2,000 young feminists from across the French and English- speaking African countries to be trained and actually start running social movements effectively without meeting the challenging legal and financial requirements often required by donor organizations. Even without meeting these requirements, they still can exist independently and impact their communities.

What is bringing you hope and optimism for ASRHR in Cameroon and the West African region these days?

Formin: One of the things that gives me a lot of optimism is the existence of the Generation Equality Forum, which is giving so much hope to West Africa and Cameroon.

The government is doing as much as it can despite a lot of setbacks to its plans and policies and mechanisms. Non-state actors are taking the lead and doing the most that they can to ensure that health services are accessible and adolescent girls and young women can actually meet their sexual reproductive health needs.

A very practical example would be the role of the Global Fund, which has an HIV epidemic response fund (HER Voice Fund) and for the past several years and counting it's been able to pilot funding to women-led organizations across 13 African countries. This is geared towards empowering adolescent girls to make informed decisions about issues that affect them directly and be at the very center of country coordinating mechanisms.

We're also starting to see that perceptions are changing around bodily autonomy. People are becoming more informed, women are becoming more empowered. We have young girls who are becoming more vocal about their sexual reproductive health needs due to community-based organizations. These girls and young women are able to sit at decision-making tables with authorities at the national level, at the district level, and the grassroots level. They're able to lobby for the right policies, to lobby for community-tailored solutions, and this is really what gives me a whole lot of hope.

Could you tell us about the current sexual and reproductive health situation for adolescent girls in Cameroon?

Formin: I would describe the situation as very precarious. The reason why I say this is because Cameroon, unlike some other African countries, still lags behind when it comes to inclusivity in national health policies. This has taken a big toll on sexual and reproductive health and rights. The policies of the country, for example, are still very vague in terms of the penal code when it comes to defining human rights violations or sexual and reproductive health and rights violations of adolescent girls and young women.

Cameroon is also one of those African countries where abortion is still criminalized and is only allowed under certain medical conditions. Bodily autonomy is really not a reality in this country. Because these national health policies still lag behind, some national statistics are really very sad. For example, Cameroon is one of the African countries with a leading economy and has achieved major reductions in adolescent fertility rates over the past 20 years or so, but, sadly, still has some of the highest levels of teenage pregnancies in the Central African region.

Teenage pregnancies take a great toll on the country's economy because of the dependency that results from that. The sexual and gender-based violence statistics are also really sad. When we look at, let's say, young women from the ages 20 to 24, cases of intimate partner violence stand at 60.5%, and for teenage girls from the ages of 15 to 19 it stands at 54.3%. That is why I had to describe the situation as being precarious.

Systemic patriarchy is still very profound in Cameroon, which has made women and young women and girls view their lives in terms of men being their financial plan or their families as their financial plan. And if young girls and young women are really not economically empowered, you really cannot access sexual reproductive health services. A lot of them are not able to access family planning services because it's either their parents who have married them off or their husbands or boyfriends get to decide when they have children and how they have children.

It's also not news that Cameroon has had a political insurgency for the past six years and counting. This has taken a huge toll on the sexual reproductive health rights of adolescent girls and young women in crisis-stricken areas. Sexual and gender-based violence is on the rise in these areas as young girls and women are exposed to violence and also in very insecure environments.

What are some of the common challenges hindering adolescent girls and young women from accessing sexual and reproductive health services in your country?

Formin: I really want to start with the lack of confidentiality of health workers. Because there is this lack of confidentiality, health services are not youth friendly. A young girl or young woman would not want to go, for example, to the HIV unit to be tested or for antiretrovirals because there's a health worker there who might be living in their community and who knows her. The moment they walk out of the hospital, it becomes news for the rest of the community. This is the reality for so many girls, so many homes, so many families. And this is one of the reasons why young girls and women would rather stay at home than access these sexual and reproductive health services.

There's also the stigma around sexuality in the country. It is a taboo or a shame for a young girl to walk into a health center requesting a condom. In the mind of the health worker who is attending to the girl or the boy, they are immoral [since] you are already sexually active at this tender age. Because of all these factors and this stigmatization, sexual and reproductive health services are really not integrated and really not as accessible as they ought to be.

Another aspect is the lack of information in the country's educational curriculum. Cameroon is one of many African countries that lacks a concise sex education framework for the educational curriculum. The lack of information contributes to the state of sexual reproductive health services in the country. How would I know much about my sexuality? How would I know much about my sexual health? How would I know where to access these services if I'm not taught, if I'm not educated on them?

Finally, there's also the whole aspect of poverty, which also takes a very great toll. It's one of the reasons why these services are inaccessible by adolescent girls and young women who come from humble backgrounds. There is just this huge gap between the haves and the haves not, and people from very humble backgrounds cannot afford sexual health and reproductive health services. For example, menstrual health management has become a huge challenge for adolescent girls who cannot afford sanitary pads since the prices have skyrocketed because of the state of the economy at the moment.

How could we make ASRHR services more youth-friendly and accessible in Cameroon and West Africa?

Formin: I think there is a need for tech-based solutions to be introduced in the country and in the West African region to tackle the sexual reproductive health needs of adolescent girls and young women. I also think it is really very important for national health policies and national health response mechanisms as well as action plans and services to be built in collaboration with young people. When we look at the national HIV plan in the country, it's really very excellent. But sadly enough, it excludes adolescents at the implementation stage. We need new ways of making policies and services and response mechanisms for adolescent girls and young women inclusive. This cannot be overly emphasized. It is really very important.

On this year’s IWD, what is your biggest hope for women and health?

Formin: My biggest hope is for women to have bodily autonomy. When I talk about women having bodily autonomy, it's because for so long women have been relegated to the background on issues that directly affect them, especially when it comes to their health. The only way that a woman's voice is going to be heard in a country like Cameroon would be if a woman feels empowered. That would mean that women are economically empowered. That women are educated. This would also mean there is more room for women's representation and political representation to be able to lobby for the right policies. This would also mean we will have many more women educated to be able to bring about sustainable solutions to issues affecting the health of young women and girls in the country.

I personally look forward to a country, to a nation, to a people, to a continent of women who have autonomy over their bodies because a woman who has autonomy over her body is a woman who is empowered. A woman who has a voice and a voice that is loud enough to be heard. A woman that can come to decision-making tables and make decisions on issues that affect her health. That is what I look forward to.