Women's Day is Celebrated on March 8---How significant is this day for Cameroon Women?

"A Cameroon woman should constantly compare her notes with those in advanced countries to push societal reforms year-round. And protest led by women in any society is a sound instrument that a Cameroonian army or police’s tear gas cannot deter. Women should therefore take to the streets to draw societal awareness to their plight." JWN

ByJackson W. Nanje

It was the American Socialist Party that first highlighted the importance of women in our society in 1909 and gave reasons for their recognition all over the world. The following year, in 1910, an International Socialists Women’s Conference was held in New York and crystalized the idea that Women’s Day be held annually. However, it was only after the Soviet Women gained suffrage (right to vote) in 1917 that March 8 was adopted as the Day of the women. It is important to point out that the United States women gain their rights to vote only after the Soviet women did, in 1920. The United Nations only finally recognized the significance of this day to women in 1975.

The International Women’s Day (IWD) is today celebrated all over the world on March 8 with exceptions to a few countries. It is a day that women revel in their accomplishments, rather loudly and their significant others watch them with joyful consternation. In some countries, women use this day not only to celebrate womanhood but to protest the government of their respective countries for more reforms that affect them. The Cameroon women equally have set this day aside to celebrate their accomplishments. The question we are tempted to ask every time we reflect on the ill-fated faith of the Cameroonian woman is, is there a discernible list of accomplishments that they can show for all these years that they have been celebrating March 8?

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The goal of this report is not to deprive a Cameroon woman from celebrating what's deserved, but for them to enumerate such accomplishments which are worthy to celebrate. It should be brought to the Cameroonian woman’s attention that the central idea of this day is to create awareness of the civil rights accomplishments and violations of women in Cameroon. However, what we have noticed lately are pictures of Cameroonian woman dancing their way to drinking parlors and bars to highlight the significance of March 8 celebration to them instead of pointing out their accomplishments and set new milestones for themselves. 

Let’s enumerate some of the shortcomings that have overshadowed their accomplishments and redirect their focus on tangible accomplishments.

1.   CICAM: This is the company that provides fabrics which more than 16million Cameroonian women buy at 8,000fcfa and wear every March 8 at the total sum of 128trillion fcfa. This company that is richly left every March 8 does not and has nothing of significance to support any program geared at enhancing women’s welfare yet, women support CICAM with unfathomable amounts of money each year and get nothing in return from the company. It is therefore about time for women to hold CICAM accountable and to push them to spend part of that money to support women and girl’s programs. And that if they don’t comply, they should look for alternatives.

2.   Celebrating the Past and Planning for the future. Cameroonian women celebrate the Women’s Day and not any past accomplishments because there is not a distinct accomplishment worth celebrating. Additionally, there are no enumerated future milestones that the Cameroonian women have set for themselves known to all and sundry. This should be done.

3.   Women and Human Rights: In our Cameroon society, where men control every aspect of government and women are relegated to the fringes despite comprising much of the population, it is unconscionable for women to use March 8 as a day of celebration; rather, it should be used as a day of mourning. Also, there’s still widespread domestic abuse and the courts are still dominated by men who have no regard to protect women’s rights. This day should be used to push for more of these rights for themselves.

4.   Women uniting for Peace: Women have always represented the bastion for peace throughout the world and we, the men, recognize this unique role of theirs. It is however regrettable that in Cameroon the military, the police officers and the government they represent do not see women as peace makers that they are. There is nothing to celebrate for on this March 8 when majority of the women in the Southwest and Northwest Regions are sleeping in bushes in untidy conditions and the government is ambivalent about their conditions and the roles that they should play.

5.   Gender Equality and the Millennium Development Goals: The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) are strategic milestones aimed at achieving the following: to eradicate poverty and hunger, to promote gender equality and empower women, to achieve universal primary education, to reduce child mortality rate, to improve maternal health, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, to ensure environmental sustainability and to develop a global partnership for development. Some of these MDG goals are being achieved but a lot more still must be done, to educate women on where to get funding to meet these goals. An average Cameroon woman does not even understand that there is funding for these strategic development programs that is, if they know such programs even exist.

6.    Women in Decision-making and the "Me-too" Movement: Women in Cameroon cannot continue to celebrate March 8 because there are hardly any discernible accomplishments worthy of celebration in a nation where they constitute more than 52% of the population and yet, only less than 10% of this percentage is involved in decision-making in the government. There’s something fundamentally wrong with the decision to exclude women in an equitable percentage especially when we know that they have a higher university graduation rate than men. And it is also our understanding that a country that has more women in decision-making is less corrupt. So, the issue of Cameroon women celebrating Women’s Day on March 8 speaks less of incisive accomplishments but more on their willingness to spend time in nigh clubs and bars. The "Me-too" movement is today, in the United States o America, holding men who have harassed women in the workplace and in some cases, requiring of them to acquiesce to their sexual platitudes in order to receive promotions, accountable. Because of the known sexual harassments by promiscuous men in the Cameroon workplace, women should adopt the Me-too method so as to eradicate these sexually aggressive men from society.
     

7.   Ending impunity for violence against women and girls: Cameroon is largely a patrilineal society with laws still favorable of men. Women still suffer from domestic violence and in the most part, the existing laws in the books do not address their plight. Women’s Day should therefore be a day of reckoning, to point out societal lapses in addressing violence against women. In advanced societies, women are succeeding in bringing harsh punishment to men who perpetrate violence against women and girls. The society benefits when these vices against women are addressed. Therefore, celebration of this day should point out solvency rate of this problem and should not celebrate when violence against women are still prevalent in our society.

8.   Equal access to Education, Training, and Science and Technology; Pathway to Decent Work to Women: When you educate and train women, you have a productive society. Furthermore, when you educate women in science and technology, you gain transforming a society of dedicated humans. A woman’s attitude towards work is what pays dividend more so than that of a man. The Cameroon government and the civil society should encourage science and technology and vocational education for women and not only for men because it is the pathway to having a decent wage for women. And when this happens, individual household and families benefit. Our Cameroon women should make this a cornerstone to earning a sustainable living and, when gains are made annually, they should be obliged to celebrate their achievements.

Based on the few points we have mentioned to arouse the consciousness of the Cameroon woman, it is our hope that they should be thinking precisely on the yearly incremental gains they have made to advance their cause and that of society, and then celebrate those accomplishments on March 8. They should not be contented with the few appointments received from the government of Cameroon because, it does not address the bigger problems they face.

A Cameroon woman should constantly compare her notes with women in developed countries to push societal reforms year-round. And protest led by women in any society is a sound instrument that a Cameroonian army or police’s tear gas cannot deter. Women should therefore take to the streets to draw societal awareness to their plight.