Takembeng

These movements connect with traditional practices common throughout the Western grassfields of Cameroon where groups of women perform ostracizing rituals against individuals in their communities.

Toward the end of colonial control and in the early years of independent Cameroon (the 1950s and 1960s), these local practices became a crucial tool for larger political protest, often against agricultural policy.

With political liberalization in the 1990s, the Takembeng women became a crucial part of opposition to the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) party.

[5] The moral guardianship gatherings would often use outlandish behavior in the ostracizing of individuals in order to highlight the severity of the offense and to prevent other people from intervening in the punishment.

[7] In the precolonial situation, these practices were very local, never extended outside of a single ethnic community, and established clear remedies for the individuals targeted (typically begging for forgiveness from the women, paying a fine, and being ritually cleansed).

[2][8] The older women gather at the house of the individual being targeted, sing and chant, and behave in ways which are typically against decorum (including stripping, defecating and urinating on the person’s property, sexual harassment and puns directed at passersby, dressing in male attire, etc.)

[7][9] In Kedjom Keku communities, the women would be led by comedians (called vugweys) who would lead the group in making vulgar jokes and puns at those passing by and the individual being shamed.

[13][14] The traditional tools of shaming and ostracizing individuals grew to target and be organized against colonial authorities and specific political parties using protests, disruptions in public spaces, roadblocks, and other nonviolent means.

[12] The event started on 4 July 1958 in the town of Njinikom when women who were upset about agricultural policy decisions surrounded the location of a meeting and forced the local council member C.K.

The disturbance spread and led to large shutdowns of schools, undermined both traditional and colonial authorities, set up roadblocks around the region, and disrupted most aspects of life.

[23] Showing their vaginas or threatening to do so provide a unique power for the women and these tactics are quite effective in preventing troops or security forces from intervening in the protests.

Women do not expose them carelessly and when this happens or threats are made to this effect, men take to their heels for they cannot abuse the part of the body that brought them to mother earth.

In fact, in contemporary Cameroon, the Takembeng women of Mankon, Bamenda, used the vagina as a weapon to lend support to the Social Democratic Front (SDF) party and dispel the gun trotting [sic] military men.

[19] However, when they march, the state responds with less violent measures than they do with other protesters (although at times, Takembeng women are also placed under house arrest, beaten, and killed by the government).

In 1998, Takembeng women provided a protective caravan for John Fru Ndi, SDF Chairman, to leave the country and make a political trip to France and the United States.