d: Empowering the Young Girl in the Field of Science 773- Although the impact is still low, activities carried out under professional training have given girls access to technical fields such as sheet metal work, industrial electricity, construction of metal structures, coastal navigation, welding/piping, architecture, etc. In addition, academic scholarships were granted to young girls studying the sciences as indicated above (§ 291 et al.); 2: Promoting Education and Literacy among Women Section 2: Protecting Women against Violence 774- Protecting human dignity and physical and moral integrity of persons is a right enshrined in the Constitution of Cameroon where the Preamble states: “every person has a right to life, to physical and moral integrity and to humane treatment in all circumstances. Under no circumstances shall any person be subjected to torture, to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment”. 775- Indeed, violence against women is considered an attack on their dignity. The Demographic, Health and Multiple Indicators Survey carried out in 2014 (EDS-MICS 2014) highlights the percentage of women between 15 and 49 years with partners or separated from their partners at the time of the survey who had suffered various forms of violence from their husband/partner over the 12 months preceding the survey. 776- It emerges that: - 31% of women declared they had suffered physical violence, 14% sexual abuse and 47% emotional abuse; - 48% of men declared that they had perpetrated physical, sexual or emotional abuse against women over the past 12 months; - 32% of men specified having carried out physical or sexual abuse; and - 6% indicated physical, sexual and emotional abuse. 777- It is worth noting that authorities have left no stone unturned in the fight to eradicate all forms of violence including physical, moral, sexual, domestic and economic as well as cultural abuses. Contemporary forms of violence, more subtle and harmful, such as trafficking in women and smuggling exploitation of women have also been introduced into the scope of the fight, while developing appropriate strategies to this issue. 778- The different approaches against violence included the consolidation of the legal and institutional framework, the adoption of policies and programmes, preventive measures, repressive measures against perpetrators of violence and recovery measures for victims. §1: Strengthening the Legal and Institutional Framework 779- Beside the Fundamental law, the legal framework for the protection of women against abuse of their dignity and physical integrity was consolidated with the adoption in 2016 of law No. 2016/7 of 12 July 2016 relating to the Penal Code. The advantage of this Code is that it introduced new sanctions to violence against women. Thus, attacks against the physical or moral integrity of women could invite sanctions as existed before in cases of murder (Section 275), capital murder (Section 276), grievous harm (Section 277), torture (Section 277-3), assault occasioning death (Section 278), assault occasioning grievous harm (Section 279), simple harm (Section 280) and slight harm (section 281). As for sexual violence against the woman or the girl, Sections 295 and 296 sanction offences of rape while Sections 346 and 347 sanction offences on minors accompanied by sexual intercourse or rape. 130

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