Cameroon: How churches are a breeding ground for the exclusion of Persons with Disabilities

In 2017, a friend invited me to a church in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s Northwest region. I hoped to improve my relationship with God through the pastor’s message.  I traveled hundreds of kilometres just to attend the program, which I saw as a life-changing opportunity. But I received a shocker, though, when the same pastor chose to castigate me for being blind.

“God has told me that you will transform from a beggar to someone with a purpose in life because your sight will be restored today,” the pastor declared. I was angered by this. I had never been a beggar on the street but like many other PWDs, I was condemned to this fate because of my disability.

I left the church saddened. 

As part of the constant exclusion of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Cameroon, churches have become exclusionary spaces. Many pastors look down at PWDs as beggars seeking miraculous healing, rather than attending to their spiritual needs. Based on their preaching, it would seem that the churches view PWDs as souls not worthy of spiritual nourishment but instead destined for an eternity in hell. This view, for many of its problems, means that PWDs continue to be treated as sites of potential healing and perpetually “not whole” rather than individuals already complete. 

On another occasion in 2018, I was invited onto a sports radio programme on  Revival Gospel Radio, a Christian channel in Buea, Cameroon’s Southwest region. As a student-cum-journalist with a passion for sports at the time, I honored the invitation to sit on the panel with top-notch football analysts that Saturday morning. I was so excited that I made sure to arrive at the studio thirty minutes before the broadcast. However, my excitement was cut short by a pastor who had just rounded off his show.

“Stand outside and wait, let me come and attend to you when I am done inside,” the pastor told me. My body weakened as if heavy blows were raining down upon me. The pastor had assumed I was coming to beg for either healing or money.

I tried to explain that I had been invited as a panelist for the sports radio programme but he did not believe me; instead, he told me to wait so that he could give me money to eat breakfast. Irritated and frustrated, I placed a call to Chris, the anchor of the sports program, asking him to come to get me outside. I don’t know how the pastor felt when he saw me moving into the studio. However, I was later told that the pastor was amazed to hear me display a good mastery of local and foreign football.

I used to think that the church could be a haven from the constant discrimination PWDs experience in Cameroon. However, it has become increasingly apparent that the church harbors the exact resentment for PWDs. The multitude of negative experiences shows that churches are not places where PWDs can find solace and joy. The church makes us lose our identity and we are reduced to the characteristics of our disability rather than being identified by our name or behavior.

One of the ways the church keeps away PWDs is by often viewing them as being less human. Most churches consider us to be possessed by demons. Pastors always want to heal us before we can have equal status with the “normal” Christians. This is why PWDs are often viewed as sick people in dire need of healing. Many church leaders subscribe to the charity model of disability in which PWDs are viewed as victims of their circumstances who should be pitied. This viewpoint casts PWDs as tragic victims of their disabilities who have nothing to offer and need charitable donations to live. As a result, churches in Cameroon impose the social ostracisation of the charity model onto the structure of churches whereby disability is seen as an obstacle to contributing money to the church. In their eyes, PWDs cannot provide anything to the church as we constantly demand charity.

Another manifestation of exclusion can be seen in the way that churches are designed in Cameroon. Many church buildings don’t make provision for PWDs trying to access church buildings. The most egregious example is the lack of ramps in churches. The lack of ramps is a sign of PWDs not being welcomed in the church. The architectural design mirrors the exclusion of the clergy, creating a space that harbors inherent hostility towards the needs of PWDs.

Owing to these barriers, most of us prefer to stay off church activities than to go through repeated instances of embarrassment. It will be meaningful if “men of God” could learn to understand that having an impairment does not make one less human.

Edited/Reviewed by: Cassandra Roxburgh, Caleb Okereke, and Uzoma Ihejirika.