POLITICAL AND
SOCIAL STATUS OF WOMEN IN CAMEROON AND OTHER RELATED COUNTRIES
The colonial period of the 19th century and
its intensification in the first half of the 20th century had a
profound impact on the African women position. Women were ignored and deprived
of their power. All colonial officials believed women’s role were that of house
hold and help mate to men. They believe that women were outside the realm of
politics, they never try to manipulate female leaders because they did not know
that female leaders existed.
Women formed voluntary association in which they
come to promote their economic and social interest. The reliance of women in
informal women’s group around the family or ethnic affiliation and operating on
mutual reciprocity to provide welfare and increase income generating
activities. Staudt agreed that many women initially rejected and or withdraw
from the state and redefined political order during the early period of
colonial rule like in the case of Nigeria, Tanzania and Cameroon.
ABA RIOT
The Igbo women had a mechanism for exercising their
influence in free colonial times. Their institutions of “sitting on a man” were
transferred to a redefined politics. In 1929, in the Igbo land a zealous District
officer decided to recount the household to verify them for the tax records. The
recounts came at a time when rumors were out that the government was going to
increase was going to increase taxes and might as well tax women’s property. The
District Officer entering one homestead, the officer got into her scuffle. Word
spread of the encounter and the Igbo Riots were launched. The riot was the term
which the British chose to apply because they did not understand either origin
or structure resulting to such disorder. When the tax collector and the women
tangled, the women punished him according to custom.
They sounded the traditional alarm, assembled and
march to government head quarters were they brought in their strongest
sanctioning mechanism (“sitting on a man” or “making a war”). With this, the
women were dressed in loin cloths carrying palm-wrapped sticks. The women
extended and elaborated upon the use of their political powers which led to the
burning down of houses, broken into jail and prisoners released, native courts attacked
and sometimes destroyed and European stores and trading centers attacked and looted.
Thousands of women were involved over an area on 6000 square miles. The military
was involved and over 50 women killed and 50 women injured. No colonial officer
was injured in the riot. The situations grow worse as men came into assistance.
TANU OF TANZANIA
The tax riot in the Pare District brought women into
modern politics. The riot grew out of a Pare District council decision to levy
a graduated income tax on the advice of the British District Officer. By 1942
to 1943, the colonizers instituted a council compose of the nine male chief or
native authority who decided to institute a tax in addition to pool tax already
enforce. The new revenue was to be used exclusively for development project in
the District which was the district course of the riot since in amounted to
confusion arousing out of the imprecise and nuclear procedure for tax, assessment
and collection.
As such people demanded more information about the
bases of assessment and objected the use of traditional name and form for the
taxes. Pare men were in a resentful position that people have the legitimate
right to question the government when the chief on their part sensed that people
were attacking their and not simply their stand on the tax. They became
determine to impose the tax without any modification as evidence of their
authority. Due to this, men left Pare District to the head quarters announcing
their intentions to remain there until the tax was abolished. After the
departure of most of the Pare men, the chief then moved too as well.
Several meetings were held amongst the people’s
representatives, the native authorities and the officers of the colonial
government but little progress was made. Several months later the mobilization of
women began in one Sub-Division were the wives, daughters, sisters and mothers
of the demonstrators march 25 miles to the District Headquarters to show their
support for the stand which the men had taken. The women presented themselves
as delegation to the District Officers and demanded him to either effect a
settlement or allow the men to return to their homes, farms and jobs or he himself
should impregnate all of them. The women claim that the situation has disrupted
their life cycle and if not they will abandon the Pare District to meet their
husbands.
The women asked the British Officer to assure the
roles of their husbands because for them the officer symbolizes the deadlock
between their husband and the native authority structure. When the local
officer for saw no easy resolution to the tax problem, he requested assistance from
both provincial and territorial governments. When the National Officer arrived
in Pare in 1946, they were stoned by angry women. The chief saw that the
situation has taken a new and uncontrollable dimension; they relented that the
tax should be levied but concerted a form of assessment.
Still dissatisfied, more than 2000 Pare tax payers
pay their 1946 tax in the neighboring District of Kilimanjaro even though the
rate there was higher than that of Pare. Informants recalling the events claim
that the tax payers wanted to prove to the British that they were willing to
pay the tax but the manner in which the tax was levied was their problem.
The involvement of Pare women was essentially a
conservative reaction. During the tax riot, women asked for their rights to be
restored, they wanted their men home and dispute settle. By asking to be impregnated
they were asking for a continuation of life was it was.
KOM RIOT (BAMENDA; CAMEROON)
Amongst
the Kom of formal British Cameroon, the involvement of women in politics during
the first part of the nationalist period stemmed from the utilization of a
traditional practice which was transformed in to a tool of customary power
(Kaberry 1952). The custom of Anlu was used by women to bring community shame
on offending individuals by dressing in vines and singing insulting songs. In 1957
Anlu was transformed in to a modern political organization. Grievances against
the colonial government such as the rumor that land were to be sol, failure to
restrain the invading cattle of neighboring and inadequate enforcement of a
contour farming program were all felt acutely by the Kom women. The women
formed an organization using the traditional mechanism. Within a year, the
organization grew to include all Kom women. They proceeded to seize authority from
the representative council and exercise its mass public meeting. By mid 1958,
the premier visited the area and was face with an Anlu reception. Walking with
the District Officer, he convinced 6000 women to mobilize for the occasion that
there was no substance as to the rumor that their lands were to be sold and that
contour farming would be postponed.
In other parts of the country like in the South West
the Bakwerians living on the slope of Mount Cameroon also have a similar traditional
organization were the rights of women can be protected. Such group includes the
“LIENGU” and “TITICOLI”. Titicoli is a
traditional organization which protected women who were offended or insulted by
their male counterpart. In this way women’s right and their woman hood was
secured and protected while titicoli
was a female cult which gave women a lot of spiritual powers almost equal to
their opposite sex.
Looking in to the above three riots construed by
women, one can see that acknowledge that traditional organization did evolved
into modern politics which gave women an upper hand in decision making. Johnson
(1982) examines that the three women’s organizations highlights the important
of several factors in women’s organization and new forms which emerged under
colonial rule; the impact of increasing social differentiation which meant that
setting groups of women has a different relation to the state; and the
relationship of women organizing with the emerging nationalist movement. African
women resisted colonial encroachment on their prerogatives. The cases do demonstrate
that African women had indigenous institutions which were powerful and that
when they utilized them they were able to challenge the new institutions been
imposed upon them.
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