Introduction

The crisis in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions shows no sign of abating. It was set off by a series of demands by lawyers, teachers and students in 2016, who sought to create a two-state federation that would protect the Anglophone legal and educational systems from being subsumed by their Francophone counterparts. On 1 October 2017, secessionists proclaimed an independent Federal Republic of Ambazonia, as they called the North West and South West regions, the former British Southern Cameroons.  Authorities in the capital Yaoundé responded with a heavy-handed crackdown on those they perceived as secessionist sympathisers, killing dozens and arresting hundreds, which in turn spurred the formation of Anglophone militias. By the end of 2017, the crisis had degenerated into armed conflict. At least 6,000 people have died since. Insecurity and lack of access to basic services mean that 2.2 million people in the Anglophone regions, or one in two inhabitants, need humanitarian assistance, according to the UN. The majority of those displaced by the crisis are women and children.Understanding how women have shaped the conflict and uniquely suffered from it can usefully inform efforts both to mitigate Cameroon’s humanitarian crisis and to build an inclusive peace process capable of delivering a durable settlement.

Update on an Enduring Conflict

The Rhythms of an Escalating Conflict

While some patterns of violence and protest have largely persisted over the five years since the Anglophone conflict began, the past two years have also seen a marked escalation in clashes and an increased use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The past year has been an especially bloody one in the conflict.

With progress slow in trying to defeat the separatists, the government regularly dispatches additional troops to the two Anglophone regions, only to face fresh and equally intense militant attacks days later. In January 2021, the government announced a recruitment drive for 9,500 troops, the country’s largest-ever draft. For their part, militias are using increasingly sophisticated weapons, including army-grade automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, and planting IEDs.

A Social and Humanitarian Crisis

The Anglophone conflict has plunged Cameroon into its worst humanitarian crisis since independence (…). The UN estimates that nearly 573,900 persons have been displaced.  Yet Cameroonian authorities have rejected several UN and NGO requests to establish internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps where vulnerable people could be better cared for, worried that such camps would undermine the official narrative that life in the Anglophone regions is returning to normal.

Those trying to bring relief face severe challenges. Both sides frequently block humanitarian convoys from reaching parts of the two regions, accusing aid workers of siding with their opponents. Journalists are experiencing similar problems. Both sides suspect media coverage of being biased. Partly as a result of such ill treatment of journalists, media attention to the conflict is limited, which in turn complicates fundraising by domestic and foreign humanitarian organisations.

To date, the most ambitious program Yaoundé has crafted to tackle the socio-economic impact of the Anglophone conflict is the two-year Presidential Plan for the Reconstruction and Development of the North West and South West Regions. Launched in April 2020, (…) the plan aims to offer relief to conflict victims with the construction of 105 schools, 45 health centres and 155 solar-powered water points. It will also distribute farmland and agricultural tools as well as reissue identity and other documents for 30,000 people. The plan is controversial, however. Separatists oppose it, while many other Anglophones consider it premature and suspect that the government is trying to suggest the conflict is drawing to a close.

Women’s Roles in the Conflict

As the conflict in Cameroon has evolved, so has the range of roles that women have played in it. Some have joined the Anglophone insurgency in combat roles or are supporting the fight through other means. By contrast, other women have become peaceful activists – working at both the local and national levels to quell fighting or promote their vision for long-term resolution of the conflict.

A Patriarchal Baseline

While the Anglophone conflict has thrust women into new roles, and created new challenges for them, it occurs against a baseline of longstanding inequality and a highly patriarchal society. Economic inequality is entrenched by customary law, which mostly bars women from inheriting land and other property, undermining their immediate and long-term economic security. Government practices also discriminate against women in land allocation.  Although they are often the main breadwinners in households, women, particularly those who are single, divorced or widowed, have low social status.

Cameroon has taken steps to address these problems, but they have been largely ineffective. The ministry is formally responsible for implementing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda created under UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and reports annually to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. In 2017, Cameroon produced its first national WPS action plan, which was to go into effect between 2018 and 2020. Written a few months before the Anglophone crisis turned violent, the plan did not fully consider the possibility of armed conflict in the two regions. In a review of the plan in 2021, women leaders noted that the government had done little to achieve its aims. In politics, women struggle for adequate local and national representation: decision-makers often relegate their views and concerns to side discussions, alongside those of “youth”.

Women as Rebels

The insurgency drew in women almost from the start. The Anglophone campaigners’ response to the 2017 government crackdown – the formation of armed groups – largely reflected cross-cutting community sentiment. Men who decided to join militias were often encouraged by women to do so.  Maternal validation carries significant cultural weight in the two Anglophone regions, and marriage, friendship and filial ties between men in combat roles and women anchored support for the revolt among Anglophones.

Women who themselves joined the revolt cite a number of reasons for doing so. Some are politically committed to separatism. Others are driven by anger or a desire for revenge. Still others are coerced to join the cause or see it as a survival strategy, especially those who have fled to areas under separatist control. Militia camps give only a rough indication of the number of women rebels. In (many) camps, women are said to make up about 10 percent of the population.  But numbers likely fluctuate, given the conflict’s fluidity and the militias’ evolving needs.

Women rebels play a variety of roles. Some engage directly in combat.  More often, they serve in support roles, including intelligence gathering and logistics, though some are forced to cook or nurse injured fighters in militia camps. Women in the diaspora also wield significant influence.

Women and Peaceful Activism

Paradoxically, as authorities silenced the larger, male-led civil organisations in the Anglophone regions, making it increasingly dangerous for men to criticise the government or advocate for peace, the advocacy space for women’s groups gradually expanded, allowing them to thrive, at least for a period of time.  Both sides in the conflict tended to view women’s activism as politically irrelevant. Sometimes, women drew on traditional female secret societies that allow elderly women to publicly shame male leaders who are considered responsible for injustices.

Women’s peaceful activism has taken various forms (…) In some cases, women have led peaceful advocacy efforts in support of secession. They promote intercommunal dialogue, host victims, push for skills training for small business owners, and liaise with churches and social groups that deal with gender-specific issues such as sexual health. In addition, women activists have engaged directly with the government, separatist leaders and diplomatic missions to raise awareness of the suffering inflicted on civilians and advocate for steps to reduce it.

There are also divisions among women’s groups, which reflect broader social cleavages that in turn inform organisations’ priorities, their views on what peace should look like and the terms in which they couch their demands. While urban civil society organisations, which tend to be well versed in Western NGO jargon, have had some success in putting the global spotlight on women’s suffering, such groups are often disconnected from grassroots organisations that are considerably less visible in the media.  But those grassroots organisations include rural women who are key influencers in the villages and small towns where militias operate. They often know militiamen personally, some are their sons, and they can persuade fighters to refrain from harassing or attacking civilians.

Activists also differ in their views on whether women’s groups should challenge the government or try to cooperate with it – and, in a related question, whether their base should be limited to Anglophone regions or be wider. The most influential advocacy group to have emerged to date is the South West and North West Women’s Task Force (SNWOT), a coalition of over 30 small women-led NGOs and associations formed in June 2018. SNWOT started as an inclusive organisation, (…) yet discord emerged over the inclusion of Francophone women’s groups, whom some in SNWOT accused of being too close to Yaoundé.

Perhaps the biggest divide among women separates those in the diaspora, many of whom openly back secession, from those in Cameroon who, concerned that calls for secession are illegal, frame their advocacy in more moderate terms. This gap has resulted in divergent views about what peace should look like.

Women’s activism has not gone unchallenged. As women activists became more prominent, they have also come in for criticism and intimidation. As SNWOT issued statements accusing security forces of killing civilians and criticising the government’s refusal to speak with separatists, government officials called its members “mothers of separatists” at an event in Bamenda in September 2018. In 2019, women in SNWOT also spoke out against kidnappings, school arsons, lockdowns and murders of women by separatists.  Separatists responded by threatening to kidnap or kill them. More recently, separatists and other unidentified individuals used online platforms to threaten women leaders and other activists raising their voices against human rights violations.

(…) Despite the progress peace activists have made (…) nearly all women’s groups avoid thorny issues such as reforms to the country’s state structure, which most Anglophones perceive as the conflict’s cause. One reason for their reticence is that they are understandably fearful of arrest or intimidation. At the same time, some female observers find their declarations too cautious, saying women’s groups are afraid to publicly cross the boundaries of society’s patriarchal standards. They argue that as a result, women’s advocacy has limited impact that is waning still further.  For their part, some Cameroonian men question the need for women in “man-to-man” talks. Against this backdrop, women activists in Cameroon find themselves squeezed by competing expectations and criticisms – with some saying they do too much and others that they do too little.

The lack of an inclusive approach was manifest in the 2019 national dialogue, which largely ignored gender concerns (although government-affiliated women headed two of the eight dialogue commissions) and as noted above included very few delegates with any connection to Anglophone grassroots movements. The dialogue resulted in 39 principal recommendations, none of which specifically addressed the differentiated concerns of women in a post-conflict future. “[The] government uses the advocacy of women to gain public and international sympathy but takes no concrete action”, says one activist. In March 2020, President Biya reserved one spot for an Anglophone woman on the nineteen-person committee following up on the recommendations, but his government continued to show minimal willingness to involve gender activists.

From 29 October to 1 November 2021, leaders of and stakeholders in roughly 30 southern Cameroon groups, comprising armed movements as well as civil society, humanitarian, political and faith-based organisations, met in Toronto, Canada, for a retreat.  For the first time, women participated in significant numbers.

The Conflict’s Impact on Women

The Impact of Conflict-driven Displacement

The most significant impact of the conflict on women is displacement. Of the nearly 573,900 Cameroonians displaced by the Anglophone conflict, women and children make up 60 per cent, with many having been separated from family members and living at risk of abuse.  At each new location, they have to renegotiate the terms of their stay, as well as their personal safety, usually with men who control housing opportunities, modes of transport or access to informal forest camps, heightening the risk of financial and sexual exploitation. Those who lack identity documents face additional pressures.

There is evidence that displaced children are forced into labour and exposed to sexual abuse, both in the Francophone regions and in neighbouring countries. The conflict is hardly the sole driver of child trafficking in Cameroon; indeed, the phenomenon was widespread before 2017. But war has worsened the situation.

Conflict’s Effects on Livelihoods

Conflict has disrupted women’s lives and livelihoods in many ways. Fearing attacks, most communities in the Anglophone regions have stopped organising social gatherings and development meetings, which previously helped resolve disputes and pool farming duties.  Though they constitute the majority of the agricultural labour force, many women have lost access to farmlands. The closure of local markets and microfinance institutions has further eroded their livelihoods. In addition, many influential women such as councillors and members of parliament have fled the Anglophone areas, weakening the position of those left behind. Many Anglophone women have no one to rely on but themselves. Some have found new employment, for example by taking up domestic work in Francophone Cameroon. Others have started small businesses.

Aid is insufficient. Many conflict victims get no support at all. Those who do generally receive only periodic hygiene packs and irregular food or cash handouts, but they remain deprived of shelter. “Humanitarian assistance does not do much for affected communities”, says Violet Fokum, who heads a human rights NGO in the region.  “Women need skills and revenue for themselves and for their children”.

Sexual exploitation, abuse and trafficking of girls are all on the rise. As the crisis deepened in 2018, the city of Douala saw an influx of sex workers from the Anglophone regions. Many teenage girls are being abused in prostitution rings in Douala, Yaoundé and other Francophone towns. With diminishing sexual health resources in the towns where IDPs have moved, cases of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection are also mounting.

Conflict and Gender-based Violence

Cameroon already had high levels of sexual violence before 2017.  The conflict has made women and girls in the Anglophone regions even more vulnerable to coercion. Ghost town operations, lockdowns and curfews have not only heightened the risk of domestic or sexual violence but also deprived women of access to medical care.  Those who have no choice but to venture outside in the face of restrictions risk abuse from security forces or militias at checkpoints.  Some women, for instance, reported that they were forced to have sex with armed men at checkpoints during night-time curfews in the North West region in 2018 and 2019.

The stigma attached to sexual abuse and the scarcity of humanitarian workers makes the prevalence of gender-based violence in the Anglophone regions hard to assess, however. The police are ill equipped to document reports of sexual abuse and official data, especially from rural areas, are either unreliable or non-existent. The UN recorded 4,300 cases of sexual and gender-based violence in the Anglophone regions between February and December 2020. Almost half of these incidents involved rape or sexual assault, with 30 per cent of the victims being children.

There is little doubt that rape is rampant. Fighters on both sides are reportedly using rape as a tool to punish and hurt communities.  Fighters on both sides tend to view women as a source of information on the enemy or, worse, as spies. In areas contested by government forces and separatists, women have become entangled in relations with men from both camps, in some cases leading to their murders.

Victims of gender-based violence find it difficult to get medical care. The conflict has affected all forms of transport, while medical facilities have been destroyed or attacked. As a result, many doctors and nurses have fled to the main towns or left the conflict zones altogether.

Conclusion

Cameroon’s government and the Anglophone separatists who oppose it have overlooked the role of women in the conflict between them. It is time that the two warring parties widen their focus and alleviate the differentiated harms affecting women, many of whom have lost access to education, lost their livelihoods or suffered sexual violence. Though women peace campaigners have come into their own after five years of conflict, women’s groups remain largely excluded from the political debate. Future talks about a political settlement will have to include women’s groups, and preparations for their involvement, reflecting their roles as both civil society actors and conflict protagonists, should start now.