Le régime juridique des étrangers au Cameroun

Paragraph 2 - The situation from irregular abroad

Although they violated the conditions of entry and stay, the clandestine ones remain human be separate whole. Thus must they profit from a minimum of protection (A). However, they are exposed to the extreme rigor of the law as regards clandestine immigration which envisaged to expel them. Unfortunately, the procedures of expulsion prove very often problematic (B).

A) Clandestine immigrants

We specified previously that approximately a million and half from clandestine abroad live in Cameroun^117(*). It is important to note that they are the people of any age: adults (1) like children (2).

1) Adults

Once on the own territory, they are installed and undertake small activities « with the black » to survive. However, once unearthed by the police force, they are the subject of ill treatments^118(*). Indeed, while waiting to be taken back at the border, these clandestine is immediately locked up in cells of police stations or prisons. The prison authorities do not fail to maltreat them so that, their conditions of enfermement are very lamentable and worse than those from regular abroad. We wonder besides if this illicit behavior of the State with regard to the irregular foreigners is not inspired by the intrigues of the old metropolis bus as a whole, the facts décriés above also prevail in France^119(*).

The clandestine child knows a fate even more tragic in Cameroun.

2) Children^120(*)

Cameroun shelters a considerable number clandestine immigrant children for various reasons and of which it does not ensure any follow-up. The principal one being related to their « traffic »^121(*). Indeed, within the framework of the world days of the child and of fight against the child work (respectively on June 16 and on June 12, 2005), the International Labor Office for Africa Centrale organized a seminar in Yaounde, on the exploitation of the latter.

The Office put forward the situation particularly alarming at these clandestine, more precisely in Cameroun, where they have, for the majority, between 5 and 10 years and are approximately a thousand to undergo various forms of attacks to their basic rights. As example, these children are « employees » in careers and take part in the extraction of the stones. They work in cocoa plantations, of cane with sugar and others. The clandestine minors are used to the maximum and are not entitled to any care. Moreover, the girls are exposed to sexual abuse on behalf of their « employers ». The director of the Office affirmed that the Cameronian government did not do anything for éradiquer this plague^122(*). Thus, the State benefits from the vulnerability of the clandestine children who continue to undergo, to the daily newspaper, of the practices similar to slavery however repressed^123(*).

In spite of the reality of the difficulties which they encounter, the clandestine ones must be sanctioned by measurements of expulsion whose procedures are generally sources of polemic.

* ¹¹⁷ Cf first left, chapter 1 (beginning).

* ¹¹⁸ National press review on Internet,   Cameroun-information. Net, February 19, 2005, File  : «  Foul weather for without papers  ».

* ¹¹⁹ The conditions of enfermement in France leave something to be desired because they translate a total contempt of human dignity. We will quote the case of the waiting area of the Ibis hotel in Roissy which strongly resembles a prison  because the clandestine ones are parked in rooms under conditions very humiliating. For more precise details, to see Conclusions of the round table organized by the Management committee of the Review of right «  Din  » in collaboration with the Reviews «  Gisti  », «  Act-up-bets  » and «  Multitudes  » on the topic  : «  To adapt the borders  », May 1999, France.

* ¹²⁰ We make a point of recalling that in accordance with article 1 of the Convention of the United Nations relating to the rights of the child and article 2 of the African Charter of the rights and the good being of the child, this one is defined like any old human be less than 18 years.

* ¹²¹ It consists with the transborder trade children. We will not treat traffic of children itself because that concerns another field. We will limit ourselves exclusively to the analysis of its consequences, i.e. the sad fate reserved to the clandestine children involuntarily immigrant. However, for possible details on this traffic in Africa, to consult, on a purely illustrative basis, the African Review  The N° Millenium November-December 9, 2004 it time of Africa «traffic of children, an evil which is spread  », pp.29-35.

* ¹²² Conclusions of the seminar on the exploitation of the children in Central Africa, organized by the International Labor Office for Central Africa, Yaounde, June 12, 2005.

* ¹²³ Indeed, the slave is juridically heard as an individual on whom the attributes of the right of ownership are exerted. It is about the usus which is faculty to use the thing, of the fructus which is faculty to perceive the fruits of them and of the abusus or faculty to have which it at will. Slavery is proscribed by articles 4 of the DUDH, 8 of the PIDCP, 32 and 34 of the Convention of the United Nations relating to the rights of the child, 5 of the African Charter of the humans right and of the people, 15 and 16 of the African Charter of the rights and the good being of the child. In addition, all the other Conventions on the repression of the slavery and the draft of the human beings, duly ratified by Cameroun as considering previously, prohibit this practice.