Cameroon has registered several cases of rape, mutilation of children sexual organs and murder. Many citizens attribute this patterns to the raise of occultism, ritual sacrifices, trafficking of organs, and sadistic fantasy by perpetrators. The first recorded case of sadistic sexual homicide of children is that of Gilles de Rais during the 15th -century, in which a French nobleman raped, tortured, and murdered hundreds of children (2). For a murder to be considered sexual, Ressler, Burgess, and Douglas (1988) in Beauregard et al. (2008) suggest that the homicide has to include at least one of the follow: (a) victim’s attire or lack of attire; (b) exposure of the sexual part of the victim’s body; (c) sexual cavities; (e) evidence of sexual intercourse (oral,vaginal,anal); and (f) evidence of substitute sexual activity, interest, or sadistic fantasy such as mutilations of the genitals.

Boudreaux, Lord, and Jarvis (2001) pose that, the risk of victimization on children in schools and out of their residence by caretakers is low, compared to the risk of abduction and homicide by strangers. Children are increasely victimized in Cameroon because they are easy to access, weak and vulnerable. Most offenders simply have deviant sexual preference and are sexually aroused and gratified by the suffering and the killing of a child after abusing the latter.

In Cameroon, the victim is usually a stranger and may have been stalked and /or abducted from a place where children tend to gather in the neighborhood or walking back home from school. Most sexual child murderers cases are often premeditated, ritualized, and the victim’s body mutilated (3). In most cases, offenders may have never been a parent, those that are married are bound to fulfil a ritual as per their spiritual affiliation to strenghten them and secure their office, while others are simply sadists (4).

Scholars pose that, sexual murderers of children are often victims of sexual abuse during childhood and present more often deviant sexual fantasies as compared to sexual murderers of women. Sexual murderers of children more often picture their victim as one of their desire woman, some use pornography prior to crime to arouse, and commit a crime more often characterized by premeditation, strangulation, then hide the body, a pattern which differ with that of sexual murderers of women.

In conclusion, sexual murderers who target children have deviant sexual fantasies, sadistic behaviors, and share similar charateristics with pedophiles (deviant sexual preferences for children). For these offenders, children are easy and vulnerable targets, congruent with a routine activity approach to crime. Negative childhood experiences, especially sexual abuse, may thus be seen as developmental risk factor leading to sexual preference for a child (5). It is noteworthy that experience of sexual abuse during childhood and deviant sexual fantasies are all charaterisitics of sadistic offenders (1). Cameroon government, particularly the ministry of basic and secondary education must develop a robust campaign against this emerging menace in the Centre and Littoral regions.

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1. Beauregard et al. (2008). Sexual Murderers of Children: Developmental, Precrime, Crime, and Postcrime Factors.International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume 52 Number 3 June 2008 253-269
2. Hickey, E. W. (2002). Serial Murderers and theeir victims (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
3. Holmes, R. M. (1991). Sex crime.Newbury Park,CA: Sage
4. Holmes, S.T., & Holmes, R. M. (2002). Sex crimes: Patterns and behavoir (2nd ed.) Newsbury Park, CA:Sage
5. Lussier, P., Beauregard,E. Proulx,J., & Nicole, A (2005). Developmental factors related to deviant sexual preferences in child molesters. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 20, 999-1017
6. Proulx, J., Bias, E., & Beauregard, E. (2006). Sadistic sexual aggressors in W. L. Marshall, Y. M. Fernandez, L. E. Marshall, & G. A. Serran (Eds), Sexaul offender treatment: Controversial issues (pp. 61-77), Chichester, UK: Wiley
7. Proulx, J., Cusson, M., Beauregard, E., & Nicole, A. (2005). Les meurtriers sexuels : Analyse comparative et nouvelles perspectives [Sexual murderers: Comparative analyses and new perspectives]. Montreal, Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal.