The situation of women and girls is very worrying in Cameroon. The appearance of hotbeds of terrorist and secessionist violence has led to a drop in gains that had taken time to consolidate in defiance of sociocultural weight, the patriarchy, and political U-turns: Progress in gender disparity, notably maternal mortality, the education of little girls, and the fight against violence against women and girls, improvement of political and administrative representation, increased socioeconomic autonomy, and more.
2019 data in Cameroon reveals that women constitute 51.5% of those living under the poverty line, while the national percentage is 39%. Yet they devote an average of 8.2 hours more per week to uncompensated domestic labor and 79.2% are in situations of underemployment. The female unemployment rate is 4.5% compared to 3.1% for men. In crisis zones, the illiteracy rate was higher among women than men. Elsewhere, 50.6% of women contribute to the financing of housekeeping expenses and 63.2% to their personal expenses. But only 3% were owners of a house without a property-owner title and 1.6% were owners with the property-owner title in their name.
Regarding violence against women and girls, statistics show that 54.6% of women were victims of some form of violence starting from 15 years as opposed to 9.8% of men. Conjugal violence touches 52.6% of women; 1.4% are subject to genital mutilation with the percentage reaching 20% in the regions of the Extreme North and the South-West of Cameroon. Moreover, childhood marriage touches 11.4% of young girls. In the political context, despite the efforts supported by public authorities, women were weakly represented in political functions and in the senior administration. [1].
In the context of political fragility, women and young girls in particular are proven to be very exposed to extremist violence or the assaults and counter attacks of terrorist groups and republican forces. They can play multiple roles in situations of terrorism: Victims, perpetrators of violence, or promoters and consolidators of peace.
Female Victims of Terrorist Extremist Violence
In a general climate of insecurity, women are impacted not only by the evils that touch the general civilian population, but they are also the unique victims of specific and grave violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, like rape, sexual slavery, human trafficking, forced pregnancy, forced prostitution, and abduction. In the Extreme North with Boko Haram and in the Anglophone Region where there are armed secessionist groups, mane women have no longer wanted to send their girls to school, in public places, or to the market out of fear that they could be abducted and held for ransom or subject to secessionist reprisals (assassinations, summary executions, punitive raids, etc.). The women and girls who are already the most vulnerable and already traumatized by the security situation are more exposed to the risk of gender-based violence, as well as sexual exploitation and abuse.
Moreover, security crises have an impact on feminine access to basic social services, like education, health, and the economy. Impacted by the violence, women are less likely to engage in productive economic activities, or to assume their role in the education of future generations. Therefore, they suffer from several economic constraints related to access to information, access to land, access to financing, access to inputs and other technologies, access to entrepreneurship, and time constraints.[2]
Finally, the precarity of women and young girls living in proximity to red zones renders them susceptible to tempting offers and radical, glorified discourse diffused by the terrorists.
Female “Actresses” of Radicalization and Violent Extremism
Through exaggerated stereotypes and prejudices, women are often considered as passive victims deprived of agency, but guilty through their association/complicity with male militants of extremist armed groups. This perception is certainly incomplete and fragmented, but also, not true to factual reality. Women and young girls can in fact act on behalf of terrorists after having been enrolled, radicalized by force or having become radicalized themselves and joining terrorist groups by their own will. The latter occurs more easily when they share without hesitation the ideology of these groups, or when they are victims of abuse by legitimate authorities and choose to adhere to these groups to avenge themselves.
In Cameroon, for example, Boko Haram, in addition to secessionist groups, allow some women to attain their macabre designs. They thus use women and young girls as veritable arms, strategies of war, and spaces of physical and psychological terror. As women are not at first look considered as a threat, terrorists profit from them and use them to bypass government forces and work as messengers, smugglers, spies, recruiters, trainers, or soldiers. These past years, the women and young girls have increasingly been behind suicide bombings, operating as kamikazes. Nevertheless, a human rights activist focusing specifically on theaters of armed conflict would know that poverty, rather than ideological conviction, is most often the reason for which young boys and girls are recruited into jihadist groups. They receive a compensation which is modest but characteristic of their support. They receive such a salary when they engage voluntarily rather than being abducted while they gather wood or work in the fields, given that abduction is an important means through which terrorists fill their ranks.[3]
Female “Preventors,” Mediators of Radicalization and Violent Extremism
According to a study, “The integration of a gender perspective constitutes a necessary prerequisite for succeeding at preventing and countering violent extremism and for establishing measures to fight terrorism that does not damage fundamental rights.” In other words, it is possible to conceive of and put in place initiatives that realize the objectives of the “Women, Peace, and Security” agenda, which aims to amplify the voices, the participation, and the responsibility of women and to reinforce their protection to better deter conflict.[4].
Essentially, the qualitative benefits women bring to PREV have been underscored more by numerous national and international organizations, actors on the ground, and the research community than by state governments. In practice, women very often become the pillars of their families during troubled periods, mass destruction, and political and economic stability or in the case of the deaths of men due to terrorist groups. In this situation, they sometimes contribute (when they are not themselves radicalized) to make sure that trauma endured does not evolve into radicalization leading to violence, especially within their homes, children, and families. Numerous programs initiated by civil society and international organizations based in crisis zones (especially in Cameroon’s northern region) have evidence that members of armed groups, children, and spouses were very sensitized and positively impacted by the involvement of their mothers in stopping combat and renouncing violent acts.
Conscious of the possibilities offered by the participation of women in the prevention of conflicts and the consolidation of peace, the Cameroonian state has taken measures to improve their tools and consideration. It is therefore by example that workshops for strengthening the capacity of women and young girls in civic, cultural, and peace education and coexistence had been organized across the territory in partnership with PTFs. Elsewhere, under the Special Triennial Plan for Young People (PTS-Jeunes) and the Program of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration launched by the government, 59 executives of youth and life, of which 7 are women, had enrolled in a 45-day military training during the first trimester of 2019. This training aimed to make these executives capable trainers to serve across the entire national territory, including in conflict zones where they would be able to intervene as peaceful actors through training local populations on the values of peace and moral rearmament. Finally, for the implementation of Resolution 1325, the Cameroonian state restated its determination to improve the promotion and support of significant participation of women in peace processes and the implementation of peace accords; the promotion of equal participation of women in humanitarian action and crisis response, at all levels but in particular at the decision-making level; the integration of a gender perspective in the prevention and regulation of conflicts including armed conflicts; the integration of a gender perspective in humanitarian action and reaction to crises; and the protection of civil society spaces and defenders of women’s rights.[5]
* Extrait du Rapport du CEIDES intitulé : « Etude internationales sur les dispositifs de prévention de la radicalisation et de l’extrémisme violent dans l’espace francophone, cas du Cameroun », une étude du Centre africain d’études internationales, diplomatiques, économiques et stratégiques (CEIDES), 2021, pp 84-86.
[1] Informations compilées dans le Rapport de l’État du Cameroun au titre du 25e anniversaire du programme et de la plateforme d’action de Beijing (2014-2019), mai 2019, p.19.
Information Compiled in the Cameroonian State’s Report in Accordance with the 25th Anniversary of the Program and the Beijing Platform of Action (2014-2019), May 2019, p.19.
Fight Like a Girl? The Hardest Battles in Cameroon are Led by Women and Girls, CSPPS, https://www.cspps.org/fr/batailles-plus-dures-cameroon-par-femmes-et-filles https://www.cspps.org/fr/batailles-plus-dures-cameroon-par-femmes-et-filles
DCAF, OSCE/ODIHR and UN Women, “The Place of Gender in the Prevention of Violent Extremism and the Fight against Terrorism,” in Gender and Security Toolbox, Geneva: DCAF, OSCE/ODIHR and UN Women, 2019.
Information Compiled in the Cameroonian State’s Report in Accordance with the 25th Anniversary of the Program and the Beijing Platform of Action (2014-2019), May 2019, p.19.
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