Engaging Men and Boys for Peacebuilding in Cameroon

Through our study, we came to find that the concept and implications of militarised masculinities are poorly known to the population, no matter the social status and the level of education, though their manifestations are easily identified and considered for cultural and traditional reasons as the normal running of the communities. Here are the common trends observed from the research, first the causes and manifestations of militarised masculinities, and then strategies for change.

Militarised masculinity is historically and institutionally structured. This means that the state has institutions that allow for the use of violence, which is guaranteed by the law, even though it is often misinterpreted by those who apply it. But the spirit of militarised violence is instilled in it. This has reached the point where armed violence is commonly accepted as a means of conflict prevention and crisis response.

Existing gender roles lead to violence and conflict. The majority of interviewees said that existing expectations about how men and women are supposed to behave are the main causes of violent masculinities. Gender norms consider women and girls not as equal to men and boys, as these women and girls are expected to play their role as prescribed by cultural and religious norms, which according to them are all around submission, while boys and men’s role is about domination.

Structural violence is seen to be linked to the militarisation of men and to conflict. In multiple settings, respondents explained that conflict in Cameroon and men’s willingness to use violence reflect the poverty, land dispossession and marginalisation experienced by too many Cameroonians. They told us that these experiences interact with social pressures on men to provide and protect and men’s inability to meet these social expectations then heighten men’s sense of aggrievement. In other words, poverty and lack of opportunity, coupled with existing gender norms, create fertile grounds for recruitment into the armed forces and NSAGs.

Men use pernicious solidarity to maintain the cycle of violence against women. Men’s violence is pervasive, and is also used by men in authority, who thus have little incentive to prevent or sanction it and/or actively oppose efforts to do so, and in this way collude with and act in solidarity with those men with less power who also use violence.

Conflict and violence generate hard-to-break cycles of intergenerational violence. Inequitable and violence-endorsing ideas about manhood are slow to change. In part this is because conflict and violence disrupt opportunities to help children heal from the violence, including through the provision of psychosocial support or education more generally.

Gender norms are bad for women and for men – and this presents opportunities for change. In the long run, boys and men end up suffering and dying silently, without complaining. Patriarchy not only sets a hierarchy between men and women, but also ranks men on what we could describe as a masculinity ladder. This means that the social expectations associated with patriarchy do not only affect the female population but, also, limit men by assigning them a certain status, sometimes leading to their victimisation.

Local administrative authorities are restricted by their dependency on the federal government. Many local government officials would like to act to limit the harm caused by negative and violence-endorsing ideas about manhood. These authorities know what can be done in their localities to reduce violence, but they do not have the power to act, as they are obliged to implement the policy laid down at national level by the central government, even if the policy is clearly wrong. An effectively implemented decentralisation would serve to address this type of problem and greatly reduce militarised masculinities in the regions if regional authorities had the necessary power to act.

Traditional leaders have an important role in peacebuilding. Community leaders emerged from the research as key levers of engaging men and women in peacebuilding work to advance the WPS agenda. CSO advocacy efforts should target traditional and religious leaders who, through their actions, influence families and communities.

Access the full report here.