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DECLARATIONS OF YUONTI HELEN SHEY, VICTIM OF CHILD TRAFFICKING, DOMESTIC LABOUR AND EXPLOITATIVE ABUSE AT THE NATIONAL CENTRAL BUREAU OF INTERPOL YAOUNDE ON JULY 16, 2007 My name is Yuonti Helen Shey, I come from Konchep village in Nkambe Central Subdivision. I was born in 1990 in Nkambe Divisional Hospital, Donga-Mantung Division, Cameroon to the family of Shey Ibrahim and Mumeng Bridget. I am of the wimbum tribe. I completed my primary school in Government School Konchep in June 2001 at the age of 11 years and was successful at the First School Leaving Certificate Examination. I then left the village with my uncle to Bamenda. On arrival, my uncle handed me over to the sister of my employer to be, who lives and works in Bamenda and continued his own journey to Edea. I spent a week in Bamenda because there was no money to pay my transport for Yaoundé. At the end of one week, transport money was sent from Yaoundé so I continued unaccompanied from Bamenda by the Amour Mezam Express Agency to Yaoundé. On arrival, I was picked from the park by my employer to be. It seems her sister in Bamenda had described the way I was dressed to her because she easily identified me. She then took me to her house where I spent my first night with her family made up her husband, her two sons and herself. The next day, my employer introduced me to her teenage son and the husband. She then described the activities I will be undertaking which consisted of taking care of her new born baby who by the time I got to her house was just a few weeks old, doing laundry, cooking, and washing of utensils, feeding the children and doing other assignments as instructed. I got up everyday at 5:00 am and went to bed between 8:00 and 10:00 pm. I was not allowed to rest during the day or watch television. I was forbidden from interacting with other persons in the quarter where we lived, or even communicating with anybody who happens to be from my tribe. For three years I did not talk my native language. I was not allowed to go to church. Whenever I went against any of these restrictions, I was well beaten. I remember having been beaten on the right ear to the point that I lost my hearing for some days. This happened when one of my cousins living in Yaoundé visited me. He was on the other hand threatened and warned never to come looking for me again. Generally when my employer and the husband are going out of the house, they locked up the main gate to prevent me from going out of the compound. After three years of working for my employer and given that the child I was babysitting started pre-nursery education last academic year and is to go into nursery school next academic year, I decided to ask my employer to fulfil her verbal promise she made concerning my future. So, on Monday July 2, 2007, I had the courage to ask my employer about the seamstress training they had promised me three years ago. This provoked her to the point that she scolded me very well and told me the contract was that I should live with her for 10 years before thinking of learning any trade. She said if I do not want it I should pack my things and leave her house. I then made up my travelling bag, the same bag I brought from the village three years ago. She seized the bag from me, searched it and removed all her own personal dresses she had given me. She then locked up the bag in her room. The next day, July 3, 2007, at 9:00 pm her husband told me I was going to be sent back to my village. His wife gave my bag to me and he asked me to enter his car so that he takes me to the bus station. When we arrived at Amour Mezam Expres Agency, he paid my bus ticket at 5000 FCFA which was to take me from Yaoundé to Bamenda, and then handed over to me 6000 FCFA as food money and transport from Bamenda to my village Konchep in Nkambe, bid me farewell and went away leaving me alone at the bus station. He then took me to his house where presented me to his family and explained my ordeal to his wife. The next morning, he told me he has called the Executive Director of the Serve the Orphans Foundation who said he was out of town and will be coming back only after a week. He then asked me whether I was willing to stay with him until my problem is solved. I readily accept. So when the Executive Director came he brought us here to the INTERPOL office in Yaoundé.
My father who is a polygamist with three wives and eleven children could not send me to secondary school. In July 2004, one of paternal uncles working in Edea in the Littoral province came home and asked my parents to allow me go with him to Yaoundé, where I can work with somebody as a house help, baby sitting a new born baby and that when the baby attains school going age the person will pay for my training as a seamstress. Given that I had nothing doing in the village apart from helping my mother in her farm work, and considering their financial handicap, my parents readily accepted the proposal.
The cash they gave me was not sufficient enough to take me from Bamenda to my village. So I started contemplating on what to do when suddenly I overheard somebody speaking my native language. I then walked up to him and presented my problem to him. He was so surprised that people are still treating others like animals. He told me he has a solution to my problem which was not that of giving me the money I needed but taking me to an organisation that can make sure that my employers are forced to pay me for all the time I spent working for them.