TITLE:
Rethinking the Nature, Implications and Challenges of Informal Cross Border Trade by Women from Cameroon across the Cameroon-Nigeria Southwestern Borders
AUTHORS:
Isah Adamu Sheneyeh, Christiana Abonge, Lotsmart Fonjong
KEYWORDS:
Informal Sector, Women, Transborder Trade, Smuggling, Empowerment, Cameroon and Nigeria
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.9 No.10,
October
27,
2021
ABSTRACT: Women’s participation in informal cross border trade
(ICBT) in Cameroon has progressively become a popular and vital safety net to
unemployment. While it has been acknowledged that earnings from women’s ICBT
activities contribute to reductions in poverty and women’s empowerment, scant
evidence reports the patterns of ICBT carried out by women. This
paper seeks to examine the activities of women cross-border traders along the
Cameroon-Nigeria border. Using questionnaire and interview guide, the study
examines how ICBT is effectively carried out, and the nature and trends of ICBT
across the Cameroon-Nigerian border. Findings noted that women involved in ICBT
between the Cameroon-Nigeria border are young between 21 - 40 years and married
with large families. While the women involved come from diverse demographics
and trade with assorted goods, they started off as informal traders with access
to business capital through informal thrift channels. By and large, women are
motivated into ICBT by capital constraint to start a formal business and the
possibilities to make more profit due to tax evasion and smuggling. While women’s ICBT impacts on reductions in household poverty and women’s
empowerment, these activities affect state custom revenue. A better policy
framework that increases women’s profitability and protects state revenue by addressing custom and police
corruption is indispensable for the sustainability of the economic impact of
ICBT.