Cameroon's new biometric registration of voters may end up disenfranchising many potential voters, especially women in the country's predominantly Muslim north where cultural practices may prevent them from having their photos taken.
"This is a sticky issue," Adji Massao, the Far North regional representative of the country's elections management body, Elections Cameroon (ELECAM), told IPS.
Biometric voter registration, which involves the use of fingerprint scanners and digital cameras to capture the bio-data of applicants, began in this west Central African nation on Oct. 1 in the country's capital Yaounde and will be introduced to all 360 council areas across Cameroon.
In order to register to vote in the February 2013 parliamentary and local council elections, citizens are required to have or obtain a national identity card, which requires a photograph. In addition, passport-sized photographs must be taken of people registering to vote and people are not allowed to wear caps, lenses, veils or anything that could distort their facial identity.
In this part of the country, women are hardly allowed to go out, let alone remove their head-concealing veils as their husbands do not allow them to, even if the women themselves are willing.
Read more at All Africa, published 7 November 2012.
Cameroon's new biometric registration of voters may end up disenfranchising many potential voters, especially women in the country's predominantly Muslim north where cultural practices may prevent them from having their photos taken.
"This is a sticky issue," Adji Massao, the Far North regional representative of the country's elections management body, Elections Cameroon (ELECAM), told IPS.
Biometric voter registration, which involves the use of fingerprint scanners and digital cameras to capture the bio-data of applicants, began in this west Central African nation on Oct. 1 in the country's capital Yaounde and will be introduced to all 360 council areas across Cameroon.
In order to register to vote in the February 2013 parliamentary and local council elections, citizens are required to have or obtain a national identity card, which requires a photograph. In addition, passport-sized photographs must be taken of people registering to vote and people are not allowed to wear caps, lenses, veils or anything that could distort their facial identity.
In this part of the country, women are hardly allowed to go out, let alone remove their head-concealing veils as their husbands do not allow them to, even if the women themselves are willing.
Read more at All Africa, published 7 November 2012.