Roxana Willis awarded funds to document human rights abuses in the Cameroon

Roxana Willis, a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Criminology  has been awarded £7,500 by John Fell Fund to document human rights abuses in the Cameroon.

Cameroon is in the midst of a civil conflict, which is worryingly under-investigated. This project 'Voices from Anglophone Cameroon: A socio-legal analysis of the ongoing civil conflict in Cameroon' will document the human rights abuses taking place by conducting interviews via Skype with those caught up in the conflict.  The interviews conducted as part of the project will be transcribed and deposited in the UK Data Archive to support future research.

Oxford is a fitting place for this research for several reasons. The University has one of the most extensive libraries in the world on Cameroon. There is also a Cameroon-focused research group, headed by Shirley Ardener, which provides a fertile community for the project to grow in. Moreover, the proposed project fits well with the aims of the Oxford University Africa Society and those of the Faculty of Law to widen the scope of Africa-related research.

Roxana Willis is well-placed to conduct this research as she has access to key gatekeepers on the ground in Cameroon. In 2009, she cofounded a pro bono human rights law chambers in the anglophone North West region of Cameroon, sponsored by Allen and Overy. As a result of this work, she received requests for assistance and often harrowing pictures of the atrocities taking place.