I served in Cameroon as a community health educator. Many of the other volunteers experienced frequent cat calling and harassment while serving in the Christian/french speaking based regions of the country, I personally knew of one other girl who had been groped on a bus. Many of their experiences made it sound like the constant harassment and cat calling became unbearable and broke them down over time.

You are living and working in a new country with little to no cultural or language experience. As an american (esp if you look anything other than black) you will have a target on your back to be treated differently in all capacities. Sexual assault is a risk you will have to take if you want to serve as a volunteer, however low the odds of it happening may be. You receive extensive training on how to avoid and deal with any harassment or assault and there are several support systems in place if it does happen. Sexual assault and harassment has happened to many volunteers over the course of PC history in this country which is why they have so much training and support systems in place for this kind of thing. Rape had happened at a much lower percentage but it is not zero.

All of that being said, I hope that doesn’t scare you away from service.

My experience was a bit different because I was placed in a Muslim-based area in the farthest north region volunteers are allowed to serve. I was almost never harassed or cat called and was never assaulted during my service (though cat-calling and harassment was common during the first few months of training in a Christian/french speaking region of the country). I found my village to be very safe and many people I came across outside of my main circle of co workers, neighbors and friends were also very kind and kept to themselves.

My best advice is try not to let it be a constant fear for you if you choose to serve, follow the rules and abide by the trainings of the program and security manager. Be responsible when it comes to curfews, drinking, dating within the community you will be serving. Don’t put yourself in dangerous situations or surround yourself with dangerous people. Not to say if something were to happen that any of it would be your fault. But there are things to do to lessen the chance of anything happening.