Introduction

Two headlines, among many others, suffice to illustrate the prevailing terminological confusion:

• Femicide in Cameroon : At least 33 women killed since January 2026 (Lebledeparle.com 14 avril 2026)
• Feminicides in Cameroon: 67 cases recorded since 1 January 2024 (actucameroun.com, 26 November 2024)

Dozens of women have been killed by their partners in Cameroon in recent years, and the apparent explosion of these cases has been accompanied by the growing visibility of a new term: femicide. Or rather feminicide. In Cameroon's public debate, femicide and feminicide are used interchangeably, as the headlines above show, to refer to the same reality: the perceived alarming increase in murders of women by intimate partners or family members. Is this a simple spelling mistake, a trivial linguistic fluctuation, or a profound misunderstanding on the part of activists working for women's rights in Cameroon of the scope of these concepts? What does this conceptual ambiguity tell us about the state of the fight against gender-based violence (GBV) in the country, and what risks and consequences arise from it?

To answer these questions, this first policy note begins by examining the genealogy of the two terms, before tracing their trajectory of adoption in Cameroon. It shows, in particular, that the term feminicide was coined in Latin America to address perceived shortcomings in the term femicide, which failed to fully account for victimisations related to non-cisgender identities and the structural responsibility of the State. The two expressions are embedded in and/or support political and ideological struggles that some consider to be distinct. By conflating these two terms, the Cameroonian public debate exposes itself to serious risks of exclusion, political de-legitimisation, and, ultimately, the emasculation of the concept's transformative potential.

Genealogy of Two Key Terms in the Fight against Violence against Women

On 26 November 2012, the "Vienna Declaration on Femicide" was signed at a one-day symposium organised by the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS). This symbolic event occurred more than forty years after Diana Russell, a pioneering feminist researcher and activist, introduced the term at the International Tribunal on Crimes against Women. In 1976, Russell used the word to draw attention to the violence and discrimination perpetrated by men against women, although she did not provide an explicit definition until 1990: "the murder of women by men motivated by hatred, contempt, pleasure, or a sense of possession of women" (Caputi & Russell, 1990: 34).

A few years later, Radford and Russell (1992) defined femicide as a misogynist murder committed by men. The two authors pursued a threefold objective: to highlight the widespread violence suffered by women and girls at the hands of men; to mobilise relevant actors to tackle the problem; and to encourage governments to legislate and impose appropriate penalties. In 2001, Russell broadened the definition to include the murder of females by males because of their sex, encompassing all forms of male sexism, whether a sense of entitlement, pleasure, or the demand for submission. The author justified the use of the terms female and male by the need to recognise that infants, girls, and adolescents are also killed for sexist or gendered reasons.

In this context, Marcela Lagarde introduced the term feminicide (feminicidio) in Mexico to better highlight the State's role in omission, negligence, or even complicity in the face of violent murders of women and girls, particularly those rendered structurally more vulnerable (indigenous women, poor women, sex workers). Lagarde follows in Russell's wake while making a shift: feminicide denounces not only patriarchal oppression but also the impunity guaranteed by State institutions that fail to deliver justice to victims and their families. In line with this approach, the use of the term feminicide rather than femicide also denotes "the death of a female being (in the biological sense of female) or of a person presenting feminine characteristics, whether or not they are a woman" (Monárrez Fragoso, 2019: 89).

In other words, whereas femicide primarily refers to the murder of persons born with female reproductive organs, feminicide explicitly includes lethal violence against persons who identify as girls or women, temporarily or permanently, regardless of their biological sex. The political and legal implications of this distinction are radical, as will be shown in the third part of this note.

Although used mainly in Latin America, the term feminicide has since been adopted by several European countries, notably Spain and Italy (Spinelli, 2011). It is finding growing resonance worldwide as mobilisations draw attention to State responsibility and the inadequacy of State responses to the murders of women, girls, and feminised persons (see note no. 3 of this series).

Chronology, Actors, and Modalities of Domesticating a Concept of Distant Origins

First, the introduction of the term into the Cameroonian media space is recent. The first article identified that uses either expression dates from July 2020. It is an "opinion" published by Lebledeparle.com under the title:

"The Index of Violence against Women Is Proportional to Their Social Condition".

This text responded to the death of Larissa Azenta, who died from burns inflicted by her husband Ghislain Diabou on 29 June 2020. The author used 'feminicide' without bothering to define it.

Second, the term 'feminicide' is now used approximately five times more often than 'femicide' in the examined Cameroonian media corpus (39 occurrences against 8). It is indeed feminicide, without any explanation of its conceptual scope, that has dominated usage since this first occurrence — a situation that brings a smile to anyone familiar with both the genealogy of this term and the relationship that Cameroonian society and institutions have with new sexual and gender identities.

Third, while most media outlets that have published several articles on the subject tend to stick to the same term, at least three of them — camer.be, Lebledeparle, and stopblablacam — use femicide and feminicide interchangeably, suggesting that no stable or deep reflection underpins these choices.

Fourth, all articles published by foreign media use the term feminicide, with the notable exception of the Nigerian investigative outlet HumanAngle (based in Abuja), which, in the three articles identified, exclusively uses femicide. The use of feminicide by these information channels is consistent with the evolution of values in Western societies, where non-cisgender identities are increasingly recognised and protected. Conversely, the dominant use of feminicide by Cameroonian media actors — even though the term includes realities that the prevailing conservatism rejects — is at odds with the local ideological substrate and highlights copy-paste logics reflecting a superficial, even unconscious, appropriation of the concept.

Fifth, no substantive discussion has emerged in the Cameroonian public space regarding the meaning, scope, or political implications of these two expressions. The term functions as a floating synonym for "particularly shocking conjugal murder", stripped of the theoretical and activist thickness that presided over its creation.

Risks and Consequences of Conceptual Ambiguity

The conceptual ambiguity characterising the public debate in Cameroon entails at least three types of risk for the fight against gender-based violence: a risk of exclusion, a risk of political and ideological de-legitimisation, and a risk of emasculating the concept's transformative potential.

Regarding the risk of exclusion. As the genealogy has shown, femicide and feminicide are not synonyms, and one is not merely a fanciful pronunciation of the other. Each covers a specifically delimited scope of victims and was forged with a distinct political intentionality. Using them without critical distance, believing they mean the same thing, risks symbolically and practically excluding entire categories of victims. Femicide explicitly excludes from its framework all persons who were not born with female genitalia — trans women, non-binary persons assigned male at birth but feminised in their expression, etc. — even if their murders are motivated by misogyny. Conversely, local actors who claim to be fighting against feminicide, thus aligning themselves with the terminology of major Western media (France 24, TV5 Monde, BBC, DW, etc.), must be aware that the scope they adopt includes persons whose vulnerability stems from factors and life choices beyond biology. This awareness is an indispensable prerequisite for any relevant collective action against deadly violence involving persons more or less intimate.

Regarding the risk of political and ideological de-legitimisation, it should be noted that the absence of clarified debate prevents the formation of ideologically coherent action coalitions, both at the national level and in international partnerships. Women's rights organisations, UN agencies, and donors often use the term feminicide as if it carried a shared meaning, even when underlying conceptions diverge profoundly. This unexamined polysemy weakens the foundations of existing coalitions and offers easy footholds to reactionary discourses that can freely caricature an imported "gender ideology". Conversely, clarifying the terms would allow different actors to position themselves, making possible a genuine societal debate on the nature of femin(i)cides in Cameroon and on appropriate legislative, judicial, and social responses.

Finally, regarding the specific risk of emasculating the transformative potential of these two terms, conceptual vagueness results in draining the concept of its political charge. Reduced to a compassionate synonym for "domestic drama" or "crime of passion", femin(i)cide (a neutral formulation we will use in the rest of this series) then serves to express collective emotion after particularly sordid news items without ever triggering the structural critique that was its raison d'être. When Russell and then Lagarde coined these terms, their precise aim was to denaturalise the murders of women, to extract them from the news-in-brief section and inscribe them within the analysis of social power relations. This subversive potential is neutralised if the word becomes an empty shell that everyone fills according to the emotion of the moment. In Cameroon, this risk is all the more acute given that media and popular usage occurs without any legal basis or stabilised legal definition, depriving any potential public policies of a conceptual compass. In other words, the inability to name the problem precisely immediately compromises the possibility of measuring, preventing, and punishing it coherently.

Partial Conclusion

This first note has shown that the indistinction between femicide and feminicide is not an academic luxury: it engages profound political choices concerning the delimitation of legitimate victims, the solidity of activist alliances, and the very possibility of transformative public action. The second note in this series will directly address the question of the scale of femin(i)cides in Cameroon. It will seek to determine whether lethal violence against women has truly increased in recent years, or whether it has simply become more visible. Settling this question is an unavoidable prerequisite for moving beyond compassionate instrumentalisation and opening the way to a genuine policy of prevention and justice.

Introduction

Deux titres de presse, parmi beaucoup d’autres, suffisent à illustrer le trouble terminologique ambiant:

• Femicide in Cameroon : At least 33 women killed since January 2026 (Lebledeparle.com 14 avril 2026)
• Féminicides au Cameroun: 67 cas enregistrés depuis le 1er janvier 2024 (actucameroun.com 26 novembre 2024)

Des dizaines de femmes ont été tuées au Cameroun par leurs conjoints ces dernières années, et l’explosion apparente de ces cas s’est accompagnée de la montée en visibilité d’un terme nouveau : fémicide. Ou plutôt féminicide. Dans le débat public camerounais, fémicide et féminicide sont employés de manière interchangeable, comme le montrent les titres ci-dessus, pour désigner une même réalité : la perçue augmentation alarmante des meurtres de femmes par des partenaires intimes ou des membres de la famille. S’agit-il d’une simple faute d’orthographe, d’un flottement linguistique banal, ou bien d’une méconnaissance profonde de la portée de ces concepts par les actrices et acteurs engagé·e·s pour les droits des femmes au Cameroun ? Que nous dit cette ambiguïté conceptuelle de l’état de la lutte contre les violences basées sur le genre (VBG) dans le pays, et quels risques et conséquences en découlent ?

Pour répondre à ces questions, cette première note commence par interroger la généalogie des deux termes, avant de retracer leur trajectoire d’implantation au Cameroun. Elle montre notamment que l’expression féminicide a été forgée en Amérique latine pour combler les lacunes perçues du terme fémicide, lequel ne permettait pas de rendre pleinement compte des victimisations liées aux identités de genre non cisgenres et de la responsabilité structurelle de l’État. Les deux expressions s’inscrivent et/ou soutiennent des luttes politiques et idéologiques que certain·e·s considèrent comme distinctes. En confondant ces deux termes, le débat public camerounais s’expose à des risques sérieux d’exclusion, de décrédibilisation politique et, in fine, d’émasculation du potentiel transformateur du concept.

Généalogie de deux termes pivots dans la lutte contre les violences envers les femmes.

Le 26 novembre 2012, la « Déclaration de Vienne sur le fémicide » a été signée à l’occasion d’un symposium d’une journée organisé par le Conseil académique sur le système des Nations Unies (ACUNS). Cet événement symbolique intervenait plus de quarante ans après que Diana Russell, pionnière, chercheuse et militante féministe, ait introduit ce terme devant le Tribunal international pour les crimes contre les femmes. En 1976, Russell utilisait le mot pour attirer l’attention sur les violences et discriminations perpétrées par les hommes à l’encontre des femmes, même si elle n’en donna une définition explicite qu’en 1990 :

« le meurtre de femmes par des hommes motivé par la haine, le mépris, le plaisir ou un sentiment de possession des femmes » (Caputi et Russell, 1990 : 34).

Quelques années plus tard, Radford et Russell (1992) définissaient le fémicide comme un meurtre misogyne commis par des hommes. Les deux auteurs poursuivaient alors un triple objectif : mettre en lumière la violence généralisée subie par les femmes et les filles de la part des hommes ; mobiliser les acteurs concernés pour s’attaquer au problème ; et inciter les gouvernements à légiférer et à infliger des peines appropriées. En 2001, Russell élargit la définition afin d’inclure le meurtre des femelles par des mâles en raison de leur sexe, englobant toutes les formes de sexisme masculin qu’il s’agisse du sentiment de droit acquis, le plaisir, ou l’exigence de soumission. L’auteure justifiait l’usage des termes femelle et mâle par la nécessité de reconnaître que les nourrissons, les fillettes et les adolescentes sont également tué·e·s pour des motifs sexués ou genrés.

Depuis lors, d’importants travaux sur le fémicide ont été menés de façon continue. L’attention portée à ce phénomène a toutefois considérablement augmenté à partir des années 2000, sous l’impulsion des féministes, des communautés locales, des universitaires et de certain·e·s responsables publics. C’est en Amérique latine que la résistance a été la plus active, cette région enregistrant certains des taux de fémicide les plus élevés au monde tout en offrant des exemples remarquables de transformation sociale et législative.

Dans ce contexte, Marcela Lagarde introduit au Mexique le terme féminicide (feminicidio) pour mieux mettre en lumière le rôle de l’État dans l’omission, la négligence, voire la complicité face aux meurtres violents de femmes et de filles, en particulier celles rendues structurellement plus vulnérables (femmes autochtones, femmes pauvres, travailleuses du sexe). Lagarde s’inscrit dans le sillage de Russell tout en opérant un déplacement : le féminicide dénonce non seulement l’oppression patriarcale, mais également l’impunité garantie par les institutions étatiques, qui ne parviennent pas à rendre justice aux victimes et à leurs familles. Dans le prolongement de cette approche, l’usage du terme féminicide plutôt que fémicide désigne par ailleurs :

« la mort d’un être féminin (au sens biologique de femelle) ou d’une personne présentant des caractéristiques féminines, qu’il s’agisse ou non d’une femme » (Monárrez Fragoso, 2019 : 89).

Autrement dit, alors que le fémicide renvoie principalement au meurtre des personnes nées avec des organes reproducteurs femelles, le féminicide inclut explicitement les violences létales à l’encontre des personnes se définissant comme fille ou femme, de façon provisoire ou définitive, indépendamment de leur sexe biologique. Les implications politiques et juridiques de cette distinction sont radicales, comme le montrera la troisième partie de cette note. Bien que surtout employé en Amérique latine, le terme féminicide a depuis été adopté par plusieurs pays européens, notamment l’Espagne et l’Italie (Spinelli, 2011). Il trouve un écho croissant à l’échelle mondiale, à mesure que les mobilisations attirent l’attention sur la responsabilité des États et l’insuffisance de leurs réponses face aux meurtres de femmes, de filles et de personnes féminisées.

Chronologie, acteurs et modalités de la domestication d’un concept aux origines lointaines

Un examen rapide des médias en ligne permet de dégager cinq constats majeurs. Premièrement, l’introduction du terme dans l’espace médiatique camerounais est récente. Le premier article recensé ayant mobilisé l’une des deux expressions date de juillet 2020. [...] Deuxièmement, le terme ‘féminicide’ est aujourd’hui environ cinq fois plus employé que ‘fémicide’ dans le corpus médiatique camerounais examiné. [...] Troisièmement, au moins trois médias emploient fémicide et féminicide de manière interchangeable. [...] Quatrièmement, l'ensemble des articles publiés par des médias étrangers utilise le terme féminicide, à l'exception notable de HumanAngle. [...] Cinquièmement, aucune discussion de fond n’a émergé dans l’espace public camerounais quant à la signification de ces deux expressions.

Risques et conséquences d’une ambiguïté conceptuelle

L’ambiguïté conceptuelle qui caractérise le débat public au Cameroun comporte au moins trois ordres de risques : un risque d’exclusion, un risque de décrédibilisation politique et idéologique, et un risque d’émasculation du potentiel transformateur du concept. [...]

Conclusion partielle

Cette première note a montré que l’indistinction entre fémicide et féminicide n’est pas un luxe académique : elle engage des choix politiques profonds touchant à la délimitation des victimes légitimes, à la solidité des alliances militantes et à la possibilité même d’une action publique transformatrice. [...]