Mbororo woman wins revered award for rigorous fight against child marriages

By Ringnwi Joy

Bouba Aeisatu is a crusader for the elimination of child marriages which she narrowly escaped while as a child. Her efforts in crusading for an end to this phenomenon is seen through the activities of her organization, the Cameroon Indigenous Women Forum, CAIWOF.

Her works have earned her a recognition during the recently held prestigious The Guardian Post Achievement Award.

The award ceremony last Friday in Yaoundé was chaired by the Canadian High Commissioner to Cameroon, Richard Bale, himself one of the laureates of this 18th edition of the award.

The publisher and promoter of the awards, Ngah Christian said the Indigenous People’s Emancipation Champion award given to Bouba, was for “her dedicated service in pushing for the emancipation of Mbororo girls and women and for putting up a rigorous fight against early marriages within the Mbororo community”.

Talking to MMI shortly after receiving her award, she said, “I am so delighted to be one of the laureate of the The Guardian Post Achievement Award 2020”.

“I’m so grateful to The Guardian Post and the selection committee that deemed the impacts created by my organization worth honoring,” she posited.

To her, the awards which recognizes hard work and determination to bring change in the community, “has come to push us to work harder and try to improve on the work that we have been doing within the communities”.

She recounts, “so far we have rescued some 1,200 girls from early and forced marriages and enrolled them into different school. We have many of these girls who are already university graduates and in different professions or schools. We have equally been working on promoting indigenous political participation where we are encouraging Mbororo women to take part in the development of their community like training and coaching them”.
“For the last legislative and municipal and legislative elections, we have coached and already have ten Mbororo women who are municipal councilors and a deputy mayor all these thanks to the education that we have been carrying out to educate them that they too should not only be voters but also run to be election,” added.

Bouba’s selfless services towards the emancipation of grass root women and girls have earned her multiple awards from national and international bodies. In 2017, she was named winner of the With and for Girls Award by the London-based With And For Girls Collective. Last year, the George HW Bush’s Points of Light Award Inspiration Honour Roll for demonstration of extraordinary traits recognized her.

She was also amongst the 462 influential women across the world enlisted by the Women World Summit Foundation based in Geneva Switzerland, for outstanding impact in their different communities. She also won the Women Creativity in Rural Life Award 2020. During the 10th Anniversary of UK-based humanitarian organization, Start Network, CAIWOF founder was named a Change Maker under the category Impactful Leader. She was also a laureate of the 2019 Peevee Award offered by an organization named FOMBILLION.