CALL FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST

CEI/MDM-CH/CG/PRG/LOG/2024 of 04/11/2024

Founded in 1993, Médecins du Monde-Switzerland (MdM-CH) is a humanitarian non-governmental organization working in Switzerland and internationally to establish sustainable access to healthcare for excluded populations. MdM-CH has been present in Cameroon since 2013, and its main aim is to improve the living conditions of vulnerable populations. 

For the past 8 years and with the advent of the Socio-political Crises in the North west Region, many teenagers especially boys have committed crimes some of which are classified under misdemeanors or even felonies. Consequently, they are often arrested and detained in detention centres for long periods before gaining access to trial and possible incarceration. Awaiting trial may last up to 2 years or more, while at the pre detention level of the Judicial police, the detention conditions in most cells does not meet up to the minimum international standard. Children are often detained in the same cell with adults and some cases have been recorded where males and females are put in same cell. While undergoing such period of correction these children who are in conflict with the law do not have any psycho-social counsellor or Social Worker to counsel them for behaviour change. Research reveals that only one Commissariat, the Central Police Station Bamenda, and the Bamenda Central Prison in the entire North West Region has one Social Worker each, all females. This number is too negligible to handle the numerous juvenile cases that come up day in day out.  Finally, the children develop coping mechanisms through peer group learning and at times from adult inmates’ doctrine. They become hard hearted and grow up to be worse criminals than before. On their release, some go to seek revenge, and thus become recidivists.

Almost all organisations working in the North West and West Regions focus on Survivor centred approach where much action is geared towards building resilience on the Victim often called Survivor if they didn’t lose their lives in the course of the aggression. Once the perpetrator has been handed to the Law enforcement, no one follows up to see if at the end of the incarceration the perpetrator has improved in virtues or not.

In the past decades Cameroon has ratified most of the international conventions and treaties relating to child protection like the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the African Charter of Rights and Welfare of the Child. These international instruments have been assimilated through national Laws and policies to implement the exigencies of the international demands. Here we have the Cameroon Constitution, the Cameroon Penal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code, Labour Code and the Civil Status Registration Ordinance of 1981 as amended in 2011. These domestic instruments serve as checks and guidelines in handling issues relating to child protection. However, it would be misleading if we content ourselves looking at the content of the good laws and policies rather than focus on their applicability. Research carried out by the Civil Society Organisation CHRAPA (Centre for Human Rights and Peace Advocacy in Bamenda in 2015 reveals that the rights of children in conflict with the law are not being respected along the judicial chain.

As part of the implementation of its " Strengthening the protection of vulnerable populations in the North-West and West regions of Cameroon " project, MdM-CH is supporting the FIDA association in its advocacy for the application of the law on alternative sentences for minors in conflict with the law. MDM-CH’s advocacy strategy will be not to put more laws in place, but to facilitate the implementation of the existing laws and policies which are being violated in contravention to international policies.

To achieve this activity, MdM-CH seeks a consultant to technically support FIDA’s advocacy initiative aimed at enhancing the implementation of laws on alternative sentencing for juveniles in conflict with the law in Cameroon’s North-West and West Regions. This advocacy effort involves strategic engagement with the Ministry of Justice (MINJUSTICE) and other relevant stakeholders to promote juvenile justice reform, including support for community-based re-education alternatives to detention 

The interested candidates can get the Terms of Reference through the link below:

 https://medmonde-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/raf_cameroun_medecinsdumonde_ch/ES8XtN4MFLFPl_odDrT-IRUBaO6Yq1pPce9lTaQCHIyU7g?e=xAStuY

 Deadline:  15th November 2024 at 5:30 PM