The human cost of violence in the anglophone regions of Cameroon has been thousands of civilian deaths and hundreds of thousands of people being displaced since 2016. Women, like in most emergency situations, are said to bear the brunt of the conflict and high levels of militarisation in the two regions. But they are also active agents, advocates and activists working to end the crisis. 

Two schoolgirls, aged five and eight, were killed by police and military officers within a month of each other in Buea and Bamenda, the capitals of the two English speaking regions of Cameroon — the South West and North West. Their deaths were followed by protests, one in which the perpetrating officer was lynched by a mob on October 14, 2021. 

In a news report by Blaise Eyong, women interviewed and were participating in the protests that sparked after the killing of five-year-old Caro Louise Ndialle decried the high levels of police brutality in the regions and lamented that they have been the ones bearing the brunt of the conflict. Human Rights Watch reports that Cameroon’s armed forces used excessive use of force against protesters who called for justice of 8-year-old Brandy Tataw in November 2021. The humanitarian situation in Cameroon is considered one of the worst in the world and one of the most neglected, despite three simultaneous crises.

Cameroon’s civil war began in October of 2016 when the central Cameroonian military violently repressed protesting anglophone lawyers and teachers who objected to the imposition of French legal institutions, and French-speaking teachers in anglophone schools. The protests were also about the perceived marginalisation of the two regions and anglophone populations — that make 20 up per cent of the total population of the country — by a French-dominated state apparatus, despite the official status of both languages. Tensions date back to the colonial era when Cameroon was divided between France and Britain after World War I. 

The repression of protests in 2016 escalated into a de facto armed conflict between central government forces and separatist groups seeking to establish the independent state of Ambazonia with the North-West and South-West states. The ensuing crisis has had a high human cost, with thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands internally displaced persons (IDPs), of which women make up 51 per cent. There has also been a 10 per cent increase in the number of women-led households in the Northwest and Southwest Regions compared to 2017, at the beginning of the civil war, a factor that increases the economic vulnerabilities of a household.

Deteriorating social protection mechanisms given the conflict have also made women and girls more vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence, malnutrition, maternal and infant mortality, among other social ills that during non-conflict periods already disadvantage them. The problem in the narratives surrounding women in conflict situations is that they are always mired in an assumed lack of agency. History indicates that they have been present and organising across history, but patriarchal norms have meant that their agency in resistance and change-making remained largely erased in history and storytelling. 

But Cameroonian women have created different networks through which they express their grievances and mobilise international attention and support to end the anglophone crisis, many women-led civil society organisations taking to social media to amplify their voices. Their resistance, at indigenous grassroots and institutional levels, has been documented as far back as the 1950s. 

For example, during the Anlu Rebellion in the Bamenda Grassfields (North West region), Kom women, prompted by rumours that their lands would be sold to the Igbo ethnic group of Nigeria, organised protests against colonial forces and men’s dominance. 

Another example is movements by the Takumbeng traditional and secret women’s society, which have historically organised to challenge state violence and arbitrary arrests of anglophone civilians when the multi-party system was re-introduced in 1992. One of their actions was even protecting defeated presidential candidate John Fru Ndi from military forces of the Francophone administration during a post-election state of emergency.

On September 22 2017, when mass protests erupted in response to the government’s anti-democratic clampdown, Takumbeng women again organised and demonstrated across the English-speaking provinces. Even in the diaspora, they have been organising for the release of prisoners arrested arbitrarily by central government forces.

In May 2019, 200 women demonstrated to demand an end to the violence through inclusive dialogue, when the Prime Minister of Cameroon, Joseph Ngute, visited Bamenda. The North West and South West Women’s Task Force has been prominent in organising protests and brokering peace through lobbying and advocacy. 

While attempts at forging peace continue, the more immediate needs of North Western and South Western Cameroonians are being addressed through different initiatives. Women have been active in negotiating the end of school boycotts by separatist forces — between 2016 and 2018, UNICEF reports that at least 58 schools had been damaged in the struggle, and students have often been kidnapped and maimed for refusing to boycott schools — that has meant that many students have not attended classes since the beginning of the conflict, adding extra stressors for households for their primary caretakers, who are often women. Hundreds of schools reopened in September of 2021, after 3 to 5 years of closure. 

Velveeta Viban and Kabila Gana Lapnet have partnered to address the sanitary and educational needs of internally displaced persons, by providing them with handwashing material, that during the COVID-19 pandemic is a central prevention strategy and learning materials for displaced children. 

Women leaders like Kah Wallah have also petitioned the UN security council to prioritise the Anglophone crisis on their agenda and intervene in the ongoing conflict to pressure the belligerent forces to de-escalate immediately. 

The priority for many women’s groups remains immediate ceasefire, encouraging “#TalksNotBlood". Rebuilding any kind of livelihood where women are free and secure to generate income, children can safely attend schools, and generally where anglophone populations are no longer marginalised by the state apparatus requires an active process of demilitarisation. For the sake of their own lives, and not only for the sake of the lives of those they care for, but women’s participation must also actively be acknowledged.

Their position in a patriarchal society is exactly why their participation is crucial to any effective and sustainable resolution process that can lead to lasting change. Though they are often excluded — in Cameroon’s case, the first national dialogue that was held after the start of the conflict was largely devoid of women’s representation, in particular Anglophone women — their participation as individuals and members of civil society organisations has been found to improve outcomes for peacebuilding. And if history is any indication, Cameroonian women will always be prepared to defend the integrity of their lives, households and lands.