At women’s peace convention: FES Foundation urges youth, women leaders to be responsible, promote equality.

The ceremony was also an opportunity to bid farewell to the FES Cameroon Resident Representative in Yaounde. 

It was attended by representatives of political parties, trade unions, civil society organisations, women peace builders from across Africa and domestic workers.

It also brought together international organisations, stakeholders and the new FES Resident Representative, Christain Klatt.

The convention was aimed at celebrating the strides made in the collective journey towards peace and to explore other ways of getting women actively involved in all walks of life.

It was a gathering emerging from the FES gender justice competency centre in Mozambique, uniting the feminist lab and the award-winning national women’s convention for peace in Cameroon in enhancing each other’s work and fortifying their capabilities and shaping innovative ideas for peace building.

The outgoing FES Resident Representative, Nina Netzer, said the convention was for the women to participate in deep discussions and collaborations that will define peace, help bring stories challenges and triumphs of women into the forefront of public leaders and celebrate her leadership.

Recounting FES’ strides in women’s peace 

Nina Netzer said “for the past five years, the foundation has been fighting for peace, women’s rights and the inclusion of young people in political parties...”. She said the past three days have like a melting pot of discussions in this direction. 

“We have seen political party leaders, trade union leaders, women peace builders, domestic workers, civil society leaders expressing their vision for Cameroon; how Cameroon should look like in 10 years,” she said.

Netzer added that it is her wish to see young people from different political parties and civil society be future leaders who are responsible to share certain values such as equality and tolerance.

Emphasising on collaboration with other actors for the involvement of women in peace building, Netzer said many diplomatic missions and international organisations are there to support and work together with Cameroonian partners. 

Advocating peace in NW, SW

A member of the Cameroon peace convention, Prudence Noutcha, said it is for women to advocate return of peace in the North West, South West and Far North Regions.

“We work together because we can better achieve as one for it is known without peace we cannot develop our communities. We cannot talk about the education of our children, we cannot talk about social justice,” Noutcha said.

With women having a vital role to play in the community, the annual convention is to craft a way to put women in top positions with women getting involved in peace building, mediation, economics and politics. 

Political inclusion of women 

On his part, the National Chairman of Social Democratic Front, SDF, Hon Joshua Osih, highlighted the fact that women make up the highest percentage of the world and thus their participation in politics is important. 

“We all know the highest and biggest political party in Cameroon are women but we still don’t have a lot of women present. That is why I am not a fan of the proportional list system that the court gives…,” he said.

According to him, gender should be included in the sociological composition of the list of appointments, adding that women can only participate in politics if laws are changed and those which women need put in place.

Acknowledging the challenges faced, Hon Osih added that one of the problems involved is fighting for women’s participation at the Parliament and a country where women can have a clear participation in top positions.

He went further to encourage women to get more involved in politics, assuring them that SDF is always willing to welcome and help them if they face any difficulties.

Social inclusion of women

Civil society leader, His Majesty Bruno Mvondo, saluted the effort of women in the society, affirming that the woman is at the centre of socioeconomic development and the society needs to understand that climate change affects the materialisation and entrepreneurship of a woman

He said “in morphology, as you know, the man starts doing certain activities from the age of 18 and a woman as from the age of 12…”.

“According to our village traditions a woman at the age of eight was already undergoing training on how to care for a family, how to create a village community and a dynasty,” Mvondo said. 

Highlighting that women play a very important role in peace building, he further said: “I as a traditional ruler, I don’t know the price of moulded block, nor the price of a trailer: there are wives, sisters and mothers who know all of this. So in reality, for us a woman from the age of eight years already has all it takes to build a village community”.

Enter feminist lap participation

The event also featured a feminist lap, bringing together feminists from all across Africa who partner with women convention in Cameroon in order to fight for peace and inclusion.

One of the women of the feminist lab from Ghana, Akua Opokua Britwum, said the feminist lap is interested in helping women in Cameroon fight for peace in the conflict regions of Cameroon.

“We are here to listen to the women and see how we can help them build peace. This is because in Africa the issues of conflict is about resources; how the people can get access to resources and how the government can ensure that there is equal distribution of resources and then everyone will feel included. So, there is no need for the armed struggles,” Akua said.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue N0:3155 of Monday July 01, 2024