Rights Protection, Fight Against GBV, Prerequisites For Peace

By Imma MKONG 

Stakeholders in peacebuilding are poised to ensure the protection of human rights and the fight against Gender Based Violence - GBV, as conditions cine qua non for building peace.

They took the commitment recently in Yaounde, after a 3-day workshop organized by UNDP and partners, to train stakeholders in human rights protection and the implementation of UNSCR1325 on women, Peace and Security in Cameroon.

After presentations on the basics of GBV and what UNSCR1325 is all about, deliberations focused more on data  from the National Institute of Statistics, indicating that 44 percent of men suffer gender based violence. 

This was somewhat shocking to some participants who thought the data didn't represent reality.

The conclusion however was that, what is most important in the Fight against GBV is not the number of victims but the response from survivors.

Unlike the yesteryears, actions on the implementation of UNSCR1325 will hence be focus more on the prevention pillar of the resolution; this means that women must be actively involved in crisis prevention.

 "If women can readily blow the whistle when they hear plans of possible acquisition of arms or launch of attacks, from their sons, brothers or spouses, this will greatly prevent conflicts and loss of lives" said Muma Yvonne, multi-stake peace promoter and gender rights advocate.

The second and third days of the workshop saw different institutions presenting what they have been doing to protect human rights and fight against Gender Based Violence.

Officials from  the ministry of justice, National Gendarmerie, Delegation of National Security, ministry of youths and Civic education, National Communication Council, Civil Society and the media all took turns to explain how their institutions are contributing to peacebuilding via the protection of human rights and the fight against Gender Based Violence.

It was also an opportunity the different institutions to voice out their challenges and hope for solutions.

Some civil society actors complained that some partner organizations like UNWomen were not very open to them while the latter assured that they were doing their best with limited funds, but blamed civil society women leaders for disunity in voices and action.

The police and other state security forces were also urged to be more collaborative, especially with the media, and do adequate communication of their activities, in order to win the trust of the people.

The media was also cautioned to do their job with responsibility and professionalism, doing no harm to victims, institutions and themselves. 

The caution came against the backdrop of life threatening challenges faced by journalists and other media professionals in reporting human rights and GBV.

The workshop ended with the presentation of a national strategy for the fight against Gender Based Violence by the ministry of Women's Empowerment and the Family.

Participants took the commitment to study the strategy better and make more recommendations to ensure that the strategy is effective. 

The validation of the action Plan of the National platform, with actors from all stakeholder institutions means that human rights protection and Fight against GBV will hence be mainstreamed into peace building processes in Cameroon.

 “Human rights and GBV are part and parcel of peacebuilding because most of the violence and conflicts in our country today have been caused by human rights violations. We also see that during conflicts, women suffer most of the abuses" said Nicoline Wazeh, civil society actor from Bamenda in the North West Region.

According to the project lead and main organizer of the workshop, Madeleine Julie Mballa, the workshop was a success because of the message from the coordinator of the technical secretariat on Peacebuilding fund in Cameroon promising to take resolutions of the workshop to hierarchy to ensure  that  promoting human rights and  fighting GBV are part of the peacebuilding process in Cameroon.