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Evolving Alliances: Men and Women – Access to Land, Gender Relations and Conflict in Anglophone Cameroon

My interest in women’s land rights by Lotsmart Fonjong

I remember my early years, as I grew up in my small village with unpleasant terrain and a population of a little above 2,000 inhabitants, who were eking out survival from limited land resources. The village lies in between two hills, squeezed into a valley by nature and aggressive neighbours. Everyone was either a farmer or grazer, including the sole trader who transported a small box of goods on his head every village market day. Land was our only source of life, yet too small to comfortably provide a livelihood for all. The battle over land for survival manifested in inter-village and farmer/grazer land conflicts. During these disputes, farmlands were destroyed, crops set on fire and villagers wounded. Like other women in the village, my mother would cry and complain bitterly, because each conflict was often followed by hunger and famine.

Some of these conflicts were deadly. Women were beaten, and their farm tools or harvests were confiscated; men who were palm wine tappers, or elderly men returning from neighbouring village markets, received the same treatment. One of these incidents remains engraved in my memory. This is when women from my village were arrested by gendarmes (military police), a week after they had destroyed a church and several uncompleted buildings that were being constructed on one of the disputed areas by the neighbouring villagers. Construction on this disputed area was a sign of effective occupation. Those women who were not arrested, gathered food and trekked for days to the administrative headquarters to protest for the others’ release from gendarme custody. Men, though they did not accompany them during these protests, languished in psychological pain and spent most of the time strategising the next village move. Among the few excuses the men advanced for not accompanying the women, was the fear of being arrested due to unpaid annual poll tax of $5 levied by the government. Others argued that the gendarmes would prefer to detain them, or levy heavier fines on them than they would for the women. Nevertheless, they could be seen holding meetings and raising funds for our village headmaster to travel to the administrative headquarters and plead for the release of the women.

Throughout the detention of these women, the atmosphere in our village was morose and life was paralysed. Women did not go to the farm, men could hardly graze or go hunting, and all festivals were suspended. Even the primary school was ineffective, as young men stopped going to school, preferring to hold meetings in small groups to plan or revise strategies to invade and take revenge against our hostile neighbours. All of these were spontaneous! Although women paid the price in fighting, arrests, detention, and weathering the pressure resulting from eventual food shortages, men always decided which part of the disputed area would be farmed each year. The men, unlike women, took part in negotiations to resolve these inter-village land conflicts. It was to them that grazers whose animals had strayed and destroyed crops, paid fines. Where were the women? Why did they not take central stage during these phases of events? These and other questions inspired my interest in understanding gender relations, how men’s power over land is construed, and how land conflicts can redefine gender power relations and the roles of women in land matters and development.

For over two decades, I have focused my research and practice on gender relations in both the household and public spheres, working with men, women, public and traditional authorities to promote the role of women in development. In both contexts, we have tried to identify mechanisms to promote co-existence between men and women within the household, and states and local communities over land rights and sustainable resource use.

While other factors contribute to the gender divide and community neglect in land and resource ownership, poverty and corruption stand tall. As a result, we have been focusing on organising women, promoting synergies between men and women, and civil society organisations and the state towards inclusive development. Liaising directly with farming collectives, peasant communities and agricultural organisations in Africa, I have provided technical support and programmatic assistance to help small-scale farmers improve agricultural yields, combat hunger, and strengthen their resilience to poverty-related shocks. For example, working with projects in Ghana, Cameroon and Uganda, I helped unlock resource constraints hampering finance-deprived female farming communities, by providing technical support in grants writing, incentivising the formation of farming collectives to build social collateral, and engaging in advocacy work with land rights lobbies to increase farmers’ access to credit facilities, land rights, high-yielding seeds, agriculture extension support and profitable markets. To effectively mainstream some of these gender-sensitive actions, we tried to change the mentalities of men towards women through workshops. I created an organisation, Cameroon Centre for Integrated Research and Development (CAMCIRD) in 2016, just before the Anglophone conflicts, to serve as a medium and voice.

This work has had varied reactions from different actors – in some cases, surprising reactions. My work has fascinated many women and women’s organisations, who have encouraged me to continue it. Most men, even my colleagues, have found my stance, focus and how I articulate gender issues amusing, but interesting. I have found that political, administrative and traditional authorities are always happy to listen to me with curiosity and provide interesting feedback. Some of the greatest resistance has instead come from certain donors, who, though they claimed to be working for gender equality, are less willing to fund projects focused on women and gender equality but led by men.

Executive Summary

Changing patterns of land access, including widespread land dispossession brought about by liberalisation of land ownership laws, and the sale of land to international agro-businesses and extractive industries, have contributed to Cameroon’s rapidly spreading bloody conflict. Patriarchal norms and laws are often presumed to safeguard men’s rights, and thus create conditions for sustained gender inequality in land rights. However, new dynamics and conflict in Anglophone regions provide some evidence to show that not only do a growing number of men support women’s land rights, but conflicts are also redefining masculinity and gender relations, thereby impacting land rights for men and women. Through analysis of primary and secondary sources, this paper explores the under-reported stories of how men, specifically ordinary men, chiefs and those in the legal profession, are demonstrating support for women’s land rights during conflicts in Cameroon. This research further interrogates how Anglophone conflict and other land resistances are impacting gender power relations.

In surfacing these stories of change, this paper challenges the frequent lack of nuance in much existing scholarship on the interaction between gender relations, land and conflict in Cameroon. In line with Kopano Ratele’s invitation to decoloniality in work on men and masculinities (Ratele 2020), this paper describes the ways in which colonisation disrupted the indigenous land tenure system, and ushered in new powers and instruments of land governance that have been used to try to assert authority over a defiant traditional institution. These dynamics have thus provided fertile ground for past and current conflicts, and have shaped ideas about manhood. In bringing to the surface men’s evolving support for women’s rights to land and for their human rights more broadly, this paper aims to encourage additional scholarship that can identify practical ways to engage and mobilise men to work with women for gender equality and feminist peace. Hopefully, it also affirms the changes already taking place among more gender-equitable men, strengthens their convictions to stay the course, and encourages more men to step forward and work in solidarity with women to advance rights for all.

Since pre-colonial times, the value of land has changed from a deity, to a commodity that can be bought and sold. This change, accompanied by the replacement of the traditional barter trade with a money economy, promoted private ownership and accumulation of land that firstly creates scarcity, secondly redefines gender relations, and thirdly provokes gender-based, institutionalised, and/or armed conflicts.

Customary laws are currently changing in Cameroon, with evolving societies and mentalities, amid growing conversations and actions by men in support of women’s rights to land. For example, women in some localities can now inherit, buy and even sell land without consultation with a male figure (Fonjong et al 2017). In addition, norms about men being head of household and about the nuclear family are beginning to shift towards more egalitarian norms – thereby opening space for more equitable ownership of resources. Like women, men have suffered the consequences of armed conflict through land dispossession and displacement. Men have fought alongside women against Fulani cattle grazers invading farmlands, and defied land eviction by multinational agro-businesses.

As the Anglophone conflict enters its fifth year, about a million people have become internally displaced persons (OCHA 2022). Displacement has threatened many men’s sense of manliness, due to their loss of access to traditional social markers of manhood: livelihood, the status of protector, breadwinner and head of household, and power and control over the land, which has been taken from them by the military and armed groups (AGs). In addition, there are other dimensions of economic precarity in the agricultural sector, which are impacting men’s lives and livelihoods, including those in the cities.

Men’s efforts as agents of change and partners in the struggle for women’s rights in a predominantly patriarchal Cameroon, are clear to those who look for them. And this work can be very visible during armed conflicts, because bullets are gender-neutral, although their effects are not. Policies at all levels should therefore be recalibrated to recognise and address men and women’s vulnerabilities during conflicts, and as victims deserving equal but differentiated and targeted attention in visibility, humanitarian assistance and empowerment. Successful interventions will depend greatly on the capacity of peace actors to be gender-sensitive and supportive of any opportunity that affirms the aspirations of men and women to advance human rights together.

Through analysis of primary and secondary sources, this paper explores the under-reported stories of how men, specifically ordinary men, chiefs and those in the legal profession, are demonstrating support for women’s land rights during conflicts in Cameroon. Lotsmart Fonjong

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Melissa Torres

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Prior to being elected Vice-President, Melissa Torres was the WILPF US International Board Member from 2015 to 2018. Melissa joined WILPF in 2011 when she was selected as a Delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women as part of the WILPF US’ Practicum in Advocacy Programme at the United Nations, which she later led. She holds a PhD in Social Work and is a professor and Global Health Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine and research lead at BCM Anti-Human Trafficking Program. Of Mexican descent and a native of the US/Mexico border, Melissa is mostly concerned with the protection of displaced Latinxs in the Americas. Her work includes training, research, and service provision with the American Red Cross, the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Centre, and refugee resettlement programs in the U.S. Some of her goals as Vice-President are to highlight intersectionality and increase diversity by fostering inclusive spaces for mentorship and leadership. She also contributes to WILPF’s emerging work on the topic of displacement and migration.

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VICE-PRESIDENT

Jamila Afghani is the President of WILPF Afghanistan which she started in 2015. She is also an active member and founder of several organisations including the Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organisation (NECDO). Elected in 2018 as South Asia Regional Representative to WILPF’s International Board, WILPF benefits from Jamila’s work experience in education, migration, gender, including gender-based violence and democratic governance in post-conflict and transitional countries.

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Sylvie Jacqueline NDONGMO is a human rights and peace leader with over 27 years experience including ten within WILPF. She has a multi-disciplinary background with a track record of multiple socio-economic development projects implemented to improve policies, practices and peace-oriented actions. Sylvie is the founder of WILPF Cameroon and was the Section’s president until 2022. She co-coordinated the African Working Group before her election as Africa Representative to WILPF’s International Board in 2018. A teacher by profession and an African Union Trainer in peace support operations, Sylvie has extensive experience advocating for the political and social rights of women in Africa and worldwide.

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In response to the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and its targeted attacks on civil society members, WILPF Afghanistan issued several statements calling on the international community to stand in solidarity with Afghan people and ensure that their rights be upheld, including access to aid. The Section also published 100 Untold Stories of War and Peace, a compilation of true stories that highlight the effects of war and militarisation on the region. 

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