Women in Cameroon Exchange Pink Cards to Harness Solidarity in Politics

BAMENDA, CAMEROON – Mirabel Ngong has been distributing pink cards in her community to promote solidarity among women since attending a leadership seminar in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s Northwest region.

Community Initiative for Sustainable Development, an organization that aims to boost quality of life in the Northwest region, organized the seminar and distributed a pack of pink cards to participants during it. The cards serve as a visual reminder of women’s responsibility to support other women, Ngong says.

Ngong says she is familiar with the challenges that women face when they seek leadership roles through her membership in the Cameroon Women Leadership Network, a group that trains and empowers young women. One challenge she has witnessed during trainings is the reluctance of some women to support one other in political and civic life.

To erode this reluctance, she says she hopes that exchanging the pink cards will foster teamwork among women in Cameroon. To promote the campaign, Ngong began distributing cards following the COMINSUD seminar to her sisters and to women in her quarter, or neighborhood, in Bamenda.

“The first time I gave the card out was to a woman during one of the quarter women’s meeting, where she said that the enemy of a woman is a woman,” Ngong says. “So when I gave her the card, she asked for the significance, and I explained that it is to foster woman-woman cooperation.”

Ngong says the woman’s response encouraged her. She promised to keep the card in her purse “as a reminder that stronger ties can and should be fostered between women,” Ngong says.

Men can also participate in the initiative. Ngong distributed pink cards to men during the International Women’s Day celebrations in March in Bamenda.

“Coincidentally, one of the men I gave the cards to says he is married to two wives, and they are always fighting each other,” Ngong says. “So he promised to show the card to his wives.”

COMINSUD began distributing pink cards in meetings, trainings and public events in 2012, says Michelle Hain, a volunteer with Voluntary Service Overseas, an international volunteer and development network. Hain works with COMINSUD in the Northwest region of Cameroon to promote community development and gender equity.

“Footballers have red cards to sanction indiscipline,” Hain says. “We have pink cards to promote more women-women partnership and cooperation.”

Unlike in football, the pink cards are not punitive, she says. Rather, the purpose of the pink cards is twofold: first, to help women challenge the stereotype that women do not support one another, and second, to help women recognize that working together increases their influence.

Since 2010, COMINSUD has mobilized women to stand for local government elections at the council level in Cameroon. The organization launched a yellow ribbon campaign in 2012 to promote women’s political representation.

The pink card initiative aims to remove additional barriers to office for women. Members of the community say few women hold political office or leadership roles in civic life in the Northwest region because women decline to support one other at the voting booth.

Cameroon elected its first Senate on Sunday, but results are not yet public. Of the 14 candidates vying for the seven elected seats in the Northwest region, just two are women. The Supreme Court has 15 days to announce the results.

Only 179 of 1,088 councilors in the Northwest region are women, which amounts to 16 percent, Hain confirmed by email. Just one of the 20 National Assembly members who represent the region is a woman.

Hain attributes the low number of women in government partially to a common belief that women do not support one another in the political sphere. Even when women recognize that they constitute a majority in voting, they do not vote for one another.

“For the past years, COMINSUD has been facilitating discussions on the why there are so few women in politics in our region,” Hain says, “and inevitably, ‘woman against woman,’ or, ‘Women are their own enemy,’ comes up.”

Ruth Ndonyi, a politician, says she can attest to this discrimination. Since 2001, Ndonyi has served as the subsection president of the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party in Ntaghem, a subdivision in the Northwest region.

In a phone interview, she says that women were reluctant to support her when she first announced her candidacy. Typically, female politicians in the party are confined to leadership roles within its women’s wing.

“I had to defy the notion that women can only head auxiliary units of the party,” Ndonyi says. “So I went in for elections within the party to head a main unit. However, when I wanted to aim higher for other leadership positions, I didn’t have the full support of women.”

Many women thought that she did not have a place in the party’s main wing, she says. But she still won the election.

The pink cards aim to foster support among women. But controversy surrounds the perception that women do not support one another.

Gladys Viban, the U.S. Embassy’s cultural affairs specialist, publicly decried the stereotype during celebrations of Women’s History Month in March in Yaoundé, the nation’s capital.

"How can we say that woman is her worst enemy?” Viban asked. “Look at all the women’s groups driving positive changes in our society. Who takes care of the sick? It’s women. Women are their own strongest allies, not enemies as is believed.”

Viban urged women not to submit to the belief that they are incapable of supporting one another.

“As women, we have all that is needed to succeed,” she said. “We just need to harness our energies, be the best at what we do, and we’ll find out we are equal to the task.”

Hain says the cards also serve a dual purpose of challenging the misconception that women never support one other.

Ngong says she is optimistic that the cards will promote support among women by generating discussion on the topic and prompting positive action.

Ndonyi, who plans to run for a higher political office during Cameroon’s municipal elections this year, says she is counting on the support of the female demographic in her race. The government has not yet set a date for the elections.

“Now, I have the support of women and am positive that our cooperation will yield great results,” she says.

COMINSUD plans to continue the initiative throughout the year, Hain says. And the pink cards’ potential is not limited to political campaigning.

“We [are] just pushing it out, and we have no idea when it will end,” Hain says. “By having women carry it around in their purses, it’s a reminder and encouragement for them to encourage and support one another.”