The Role of Women in Peacebuilding in Cameroon: A Case Study of the Anglophone Regions

ABSTRACT

The study was about the role of women in peacebuilding in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon. The concept of peacebuilding is by recognizing the root causes of the conflict, analyzing and to come out with a hypothesis and the challenges they may have encountered in this peacebuilding process. The idea of women’s involvement in peacebuilding was to promote inclusive and sustainable peace within the region.

This study was therefore to identify the role that women have played in bringing about peace in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon. In order to achieve this, a quantitative research method was used in collecting data for the study.

The inhabitants of Lysoka were the respondents to these questionnaires. From the options given in the questionnaire as to what roles women play in peacebuilding processes, the researcher found out that issues like gender inequality and biases has been a challenge in the Anglophone regions.

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

The Women, Peace, and Security agenda (WPS) stands at a juncture with significant potential to prevent conflicts, protect human rights,and promote recovery from conflict but inadequate progress and institutional resistance to meeting the commitments shrined in UNSCR 1325. The chapter builds on feminist constructivist theories of normative change to put forward a pragmatist understanding of “women, peace, and security” as a “work in progress,” wherein advocates and scholars work together with activist states to advance principles of equal and lasting peace.

We argue that WPS theory and practice in conflict, post-conflict, and peaceful situations is a dynamic, normative agenda, and iterative reform process committed to realizing a critical gender perspective on peace and security. Drawing on scholars, practitioners, and advocates’ experiences from the Global North and South working on the WPS thematic agenda and on women’s diverse practical experiences of promoting peace and inclusion, we defend a gender-sensitive and gender-inclusive perspective on peace and security. Women play a prominent role in bringing about peace in post-conflict societies. Several studies have found the systematic and representative inclusion of women in conflict resolution processes to significantly increase the chances of sustainable peace.

However, women’s contribution to peace processes are often underemphasized or ignored in conflict management research and praxis. It was not until the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and seven other related resolutions that critical attention was given to women’s role in the peace process. This article provides an in-depth review of the literature on women’s contribution to conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

The overall aim is to provide researchers and actors in the global peace market with a distillation of the salient studies and findings from research
on women’s involvement in the peace process.

Such an effort is necessary to bring together the sparse literature on women’s contribution to peace and to reveal existing gaps in the literature for future research. Significant works have been done to give a wider coverage to these gendered harms to the public, at both conceptual and empirical levels, for example the everyday experience of women in displacement and refugee camps that has created multiple forms of vulnerability and insecurity; the manifold ways poverty intersect with women’s full participation in administration, judicial, and politics; the ways in which women’s remembering experiences of violence is inextricably linked with their attempt at the public sphere (Okello and Hovil 2007;Stockwell 2014;Fiske and Shackel 2019), and yet women’s participation in peace negotiation has remained an unfulfilled aspect in gender studies (UN Women 2015;Duncanson 2016;Shepherd 2016;Krause et al. 2018;Adjei 2019).

Notwithstanding the multifarious resolutions, energetic advocacy asserting women’s indispensable impact in peace processes and peacebuilding, the reality leaves much to be desired; as women’s participation remains conspicuously low; the number of female delegates in peace negotiations has been an average of 9% and a 4% rate of signatories in peace negotiations globally since the passage of UNSCR 1325 in 2000 (UN Women 2011).

UNSG Report on Women’s Participation in Peacebuilding, 2010, para. 7) Indeed, the broader assumptions, whether normative or utility-base of how women’s participation in conflict prevention, peace negotiations, and post-conflict reconstruction would promote durable peace (Krause et al. 2018; Anderson 2016; Myrttinen 2016; UNSG 2016; Stone 2014; Caprioli et al. 2010; Boals 1973), have been based on the instrumental invocation, which portrays women as agentive subjects that can unearth the root causes of violence (Chinkin, 2012; Adjei 2019). According to these arguments, the integration of women in these peace negotiations would not only legitimize an otherwise secretive, patriarchal, and elitist processes that the likelihood of reaching a peace accord and its eventual and successful implementation is intricately linked with women’s meaningful participation in these peace processes (O’Reilly et al. 2015; Martin 2006).

Women are not only victims of armed conflicts, but also leaders and peacemakers. This implies not reducing the role of women to more traditional spheres of peace education but engaging in women peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding activities, although everyday interventions show us that women still do not systematically participate in decision making about reconstruction and peace negotiations (Jansen, 2006; Adjei, 2019). This aim must be achieved through the direct involvement of women, and women’s organizations, victim of gender violence in armed conflict situations, but also through counseling and support from professionals well versed on the nuances of each context and situation.

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
During conflict times, women are often the victims, exposed to unimaginable horrific atrocities: massacres, sexual assaults, kidnapping and sexual slavery, forced marriage and mutilations (forced pregnancies and HIV /AIDS); rape is actually being used as a weapon of war. Although it is well known that the realities of women and girls vary from those of men and boys, in conflict management and peacebuilding processes, women and girls are largely invisible.

It is not because of any biological or structural reason that women or girls are unable to participate in violent confrontation, it’s because in their path, there are obstacles. Unfortunately, women are often seen only as powerless victims of violent wars, rather than as agents of change whose ability can be exploited in peace processes.

They are frequently confined to a passive role and their impacts are neglected in the reconstruction of peace, community rehabilitation and national reconciliation which is not supposed to be so. Despite the revolutionary work women do for justice, peace, and international security, they continue to be underrepresented in formal peace processes. Evidence shows that Peacebuilding and reconciliation processes, when women are significantly involved, have higher rates of success and are more likely to last. An analysis of 40 peace processes in 35 countries over three decades found that an agreement was almost always achieved when women’s groups were able to effectively influence a peace process.

In addition, a study of 182 peace agreements signed between 1989 2011 found that a peace agreement is 20% more likely to last for at least 2 years and 35% more likely to last for at least 15 years if meaningful representation is guaranteed for women It was the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security, and though some progress has been made, women’s rights and leadership in peacebuilding continues to be lacking. What needs to happen to “shift the power” to women. Transformative change rarely comes from within the system, it often comes from external parties, including women’s, local, grassroots, and youth movements. Women are integral part of the peacebuilding process, and the involvement of civil society organizations, including women’s groups, makes a peace agreement 64 percent less likely to fail.

Different actors play different roles in ensuring that conflicts are resolved. However, women who are considered the most vulnerable in times of conflict turn out to be the most ignored in conflict resolution. Women’s role in conflict resolution and peace building has long been underestimate, especially in societies where patriarchy is the order of the day.

The armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon erupted about four years ago and has caused enormous loss of lives and properties. role of women in mitigating or resolving this conflict has continuously been undermined. The ongoing conflict produces gendered outcomes in Cameroon with particular shifts enabling Cameroonian women to be directly involved in activities such as conflict resolution that were previously considered an exclusively male domain.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
In our societies today, most women have been left out especially when it comes to politics and military affairs since they are considered the most vulnerable in times of conflict. Patriarchical practices have caused a lot of women to look down on themselves. Most peacebuilding processes are male dominating in nature. Women should be involved in most peacebuilding processes because it is important to do so.

Just in a case of rape, it can best be explained by women. Women tend to be the sole voice speaking out for women’s rights and concerns. Women are in a better position to explain an understanding of social justice and gender inequalities.

This is also important because women are less threatening to the established order thus having freedom of action. Women in Southern Cameroon constitutes a greater percentage of those impacted negatively by violent conflicts. Realities that make it impossible to accomplish this much needed goal.

To uncover these realities will require examining and preventing from unspeakable violence. Most must take on additional responsibility as the head of their community for the easy implementation of the resolution will require dealing with contextual issues at the local levels, which was decided by 1325 on women, peace, and security (UN, 2010). During peace processes, they are sidelined from contributing towards resolution.

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS