YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon –Amid Cameroon’s separatist violence that has snuffed life out of at least 6000 people, members of the Catholic Women’s Association (CWA) have been urged to bring hope to the hopeless.

Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda was speaking July 24 as the CWA celebrated its 60th anniversary.

“In the current socio-political crisis that we are going through in the North West and the South West regions of Cameroon, the women remain the hope of this nation,” Nkea said during the homily at the Divine Mercy Co-Cathedral of Cameroon’s Catholic Diocese of Buea in the South West region.

“It is the women who would save us through their prayers, perseverance, and determination to build fraternity again,” he said.

For the past seven years, Cameroon’s English-speaking regions have been engulfed in conflict, with separatists fighting to create a new country to be named Ambazonia.

The conflict was sparked by the government’s heavy-handed response to peaceful protests by teachers and lawyers in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon, where the majority of the population speaks French.

They were not happy with the imposition of French-speakers in Anglo-Saxon schools and courts, but the current crisis is explained by Cameroon’s complex colonial history.

Initially annexed by Germany following the 1884 Berlin Conference partitioning Africa, Cameroon was later to be divided between Britain and France following the defeat of Germany in World War I.

The present-day English-speaking regions – with 20 percent of the population – were administered by Britain and the rest of the country by France.

The two territories eventually reunited after independence in the early 1960s, forming a federation of two states.

But the federation was dissolved in favor of a unitary state in 1972. Cameroon’s Anglophone population has since interpreted that change as an act of assimilation of the Anglophones by the Francophone majority.

As the conflict festers, women are paying a rather high price. Clarisse – not her real name – told Crux that she was raped by four masked men.

“I have a set of twins, but I do not know their father. They are the result of the rape,” she said.

In the first quarter of 2021, the UN documented nearly 500 cases of recorded rape and sexual assault incidents in the two regions. In 2020, the UN reported 4,300 related cases.

And just as they are paying the greater price of the violence, Nkea says women also stand a better chance of restoring hope.

“Women bring hope to the future. Women always give hope to the desperate and the hopeless. Women give hope when hope is lost,” the archbishop said.

Veronica Foy, President of the Catholic Women’s Association of the Diocese of Buea, told Crux that women need to take the lead in negotiating the peace.

“The fighters are our children. The soldiers are also our children, and no woman wants to lose any child. There is a way women can talk to children who are fighting that others may not do, because we have a deep sense of empathy,” she said.

“All we want is peace for our country so that our children can live a better life,” she said.

Nkea praised the women not only for the work they have done in the Church, but also for what they have been doing to bring respite to those in need.

“You have taken an active part in the spiritual growth of the lives of the women in our church. You have worked hard to improve the condition of women and the girl child everywhere. You have done all within your powers to make your parishes and Christian communities’ true families of God, “he said.

A gift of faith

Reflecting on the 60th anniversary of the Catholic Women’s Association, the Bishop Michael Bibi of Buea said the 60 years of the group’s existence is “a gift of faith” to the Church.

“The CWA as an apostolate has done a lot in strengthening the faith of Catholic women in our country and in the diaspora,” the bishop said.

He urged CWA members to continue to nurture their faith and to not be distracted by the vagaries of the world.

“You must persevere in your faith. You must make sure that you do not allow the distractions of this world to come between you and your faith,” Bibi said.

“The women also got high praise for preserving family values, and for defending “the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church on marriage and the family.”

“You have contributed greatly to the formation of Priests in our local churches, either through financial contributions or by bringing materials, food, and other necessary items to our seminaries,” the bishop said.

He extolled the virtue of resilience in women, stating that even when society becomes hostile to them, “women never lose hope.”

“This is a great virtue that we have seen in the women, especially during this time that we are going through a lot of difficulties in our regions of the North West, the South West, the Far North, and the east of Cameroon,” Bibi said, referring not only to the separatist conflict, but also to Boko Haram incursions to the country’s North and the influx of Central Africa refugees to the east.