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2009-08-17

Pygmies are hunters, gatherers who live in the Congo Basin tropical forest. In Cameroon, they are found in the southern nad eastern parts of the country, where they have settled in villages. Generally called foragers, Pygmies live in marginal communities or bands. Despite the various development programmes that have been carried out to enable their social integration, they remain at the margin of the society. Beside, neither their population size nor their demographic patterns, that could enable a successful issue to these prohrammes, are known.
The present research is a socio-demographic study of a Pygmy population, precisely the Baka tribe. It was carried out on 1091 individuals (both female and male) living in 92 households n Djoum subdivision (South province). Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to the data. The qualitative method consists of interviewing 50 individuals using a guided interview schedule.
Pygmies appear to constitute a yound population of which 62.2% are under twenty years. The population distribution portrays a sex ratio of 110.6.
Pygmies appear to be underscolarised as only 33.1% of children of school age are really attending school. The literacy level is consequently very low.
The average household size is very high with about 11 persons per household on average, giving way for very high promiscuity and high prevalence rates of infectious diseases and attending mortality affecting mostly young children. The infant mortality level is estimated to 222.2%. Life expectancy at birth is, as expected very low and even lower than the nationalo average. At birth, a woman is expected live for 36 years and a man for 35 years, far below the national averages.
Poor access to health care services also stands out to be a characteristic of this population coupled with a standard of living far is below the national level.
Pygmies go into marriage very early which results into high fertilify rates: 416.0 per thousand. Unlike some sub-Saharan African tribes, polygamy is not spread among the pygmies community. But divorces and remarriages are very frequent. Fertility levels in Pygmy households are not strictly linged to economic factors, but it is intertwing with cultural norms and values that give importance to traditionnal child-spacing methods that range from abstinence, to ffolkloric methods and the use of the local pharmacopoeia. The natural population inceases at a rate of 4,4% a near year while the growth rate is estimated at 1.3%. This would mean that if the population would double in 50 years.
Migration patterns show that, pygmies are not nomadic peoples. They deal with a seasonal mobility, due to their subsistence economy. Pygmies spend up to nine months hunting or gathering vegetal and animal resources. The migration flux matrix shows that they have reached a certain stability.
Development projects would rather seek for the capacity building of pygmies. Emphasis could therefore be laid on the empowerment of pygmies whic appears to be adequate to enable a sustainable social integration of pygmies.

Données de recensesement / énumération [cen]
L'unité primaire d'analyse est l'individu.