Editorial: Women can do more to end conflict in NW/SW!.

This week, Reach Out Cameroon organised a Women, Peace and Security, WPS Fair, at the National Museum in Yaounde.

It was attended by over 200 grassroots women peacebuilders, representatives of diplomatic missions, UN agencies, government stakeholders and civil society leaders.

The fair, according to the organisation, was to push for an improvement of women and girls’ representation in peace building processes, initiatives and decision-making structures.

The organisation also said it aims to chart pathways for improved social cohesion in conflict-affected communities and adopt the commitments made to foster peace and social cohesion at the national level.

The fair was to present the exploits of the project titled: “Peace Tables: Promoting Women, Peace and Security, through the Culture of Peace and Social Cohesion in Cameroon”, carried out by Reach Out Cameroon.

The Minister of Women’s Empowerment and the Family, Prof Marie Therese Abena Ondoa, hailed the significant contributions Reach Out Cameroon has made to peace across 40 crisis-affected communities in the North West, South West, Littoral and the West Regions.

He added that the event was “a testimony of our efforts to foster the culture of peace and social cohesion in our beloved nation, Cameroon”

In appreciating the Canadians for sponsoring the fair and the organisers, she said “it is good that we continue to impact the lives of vulnerable people in our communities at different levels and be able to stand behind Reach Out Cameroon, in fostering peace building in our society”.

The Guardian Post congratulates Reach Out Cameroon for its initiative and thanks the Canadian High Commission in Yaounde, for picking up the bills of the event.

We acknowledge that since the start of the senseless conflict that has raged on for some seven years, several local initiatives have been held to bring peace.

They have all failed as insecurity still persists in the two English-speaking Regions. But have women, who constitute the majority of the Cameroon population, done enough to "build peace," which involves calling out and challenging such groups and actors to limit their capacity to foment violence or gain from it?

By international definition, "peace building is the process of working with two or more conflicting parties to resolve differences peacefully. Peacemakers help improve communication between the two combatants".

By that definition, the various initiatives of peace building, workshops, the Major National Dialogue and talk shops to convince IDPs to return or boys in the bushes, have not been enough to build peace.

Women, the most affected in the conflict, as research has shown, need to do more, especially given their numerical strength that is not being fully utilised.

They can, as history and research have indicated that their influence on their husbands who wield power in government and Amba camps can help to end the war.

In 2017, for instance, the United States passed legislation that "recognises the diverse roles women play as agents of change in preventing and resolving conflict, countering terrorism and violent extremism, and building post conflict peace and stability".

The strategy seeks to "increase women’s meaningful leadership in political and civic life, by helping to ensure they are empowered to lead and contribute, equipped with the necessary skills and support to succeed, and supported to participate through access to opportunities and resources”.

Cameroon government apologists will say there is no equity in comparing with the United States, even when they classify democracy in Cameroon as "advanced".

There are powerful Cameroonian women who are often cited in politics and government, but they don’t seem to go down the road of encouraging people to talk, repairing relationships and reforming institutions.

Even if they do not want to follow the conventional way, there is still what some academics call "bedroom-channel diplomacy," that can help.

ln an article in Foreign Policy, an American Think Tank, Janine di Giovanni, writes in Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata "that women of ancient Athens and Sparta discovered an ingenious way of ending the war between the two city-states. They withheld sex from their menfolk, until the warriors ceased fighting and sat down to settle terms. It’s possibly the most original and effective peace process ever devised".

Even in neighbouring Nigeria, women's influence over men is called "bottom power".

It goes beyond comedy to justify that Cameroonian women can, and should do enough to build peace in the North West and South West Regions, by influencing the men in power to take action or do so themselves by using their majority to influence peace building actions, not just by staging seminars and workshops.

The story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No: 3145 of Friday June 21, 2024