Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps her Department has taken to assist survivors of sexual violence allegedly carried out by Cameroonian Government forces or armed separatist groups in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon; and what steps her Department has taken to help ensure the perpetrators of those crimes are held to account.

We are appalled by reports of sexual and gender-based violence in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon by both armed separatists and the security forces. The Foreign Secretary has made sexual violence in conflict one of her top priorities. We are working to promote justice for survivors of sexual violence, to provide support to survivors and to prevent sexual violence from occurring.

The UK continues to call for a peaceful resolution to the crisis and for the violence to end. We work with international partners, including France and the United States, to raise the crisis in multilateral fora. At the UN Human Rights Council in March 2022, the UK called for impartial investigations to hold the perpetrators of human rights violations and abuses to account. We continue to raise human rights concerns with the Government of Cameroon.