AWID -
29/03/2013 - - After a five-year-long case, a Dutch Court has held the Nigerian
Subsidiary of Shell responsible for the pollution of farmlands in Nigeria,
marking a victory in the struggle against the oil company that has been at the
centre of environmental concerns in Nigeria for over 40 years.
AWID
interviewed Caroline Usikpedo, the National President of the Niger Delta
Women’s Movement for Peace and Development (NDWPD), for a women’s rights
perspective on the ongoing struggle against the oil giant
By Rochelle
Jones - AWID
On 30
January this year, a Dutch Court ruled against a subsidiary of Royal Dutch
Shell, holding it responsible for the pollution of farmlands at Ikot Ada Udo,
Akwa Ibom State in the coastal south of Nigeria. The Niger Delta is Africa’s
largest Delta covering some 7000 square kilometres – a third of which is is
made up of wetlands and it contains the largest mangrove forest in the world.
Petroleum
exploration and production is Nigeria’s largest and most important industrial
sector with oil accounting for almost 85% of current public revenue. This
creates an awkward reality not just for nature, but for the 20 million people
living in the Delta Region and particularly the minority and indigenous
communities who, according to Caroline Usikpedo “have suffered maltreatment
through political and economic marginalization, violence and environmental
degradation.”
In
describing what this struggle has looked like over the past decades, Usikpedo
said it was related to the issue that, “fundamental freedoms and human rights
stated in Nigerian Constitution are non-justiciable[i], thus rendering its objective on equality, trivial”. She
also says that the Constitution is silent on Environmental Law and “it is
important that the impact of the oil industry on the environment in the Niger
Delta is understood as occurring in a context where the livelihoods, health and
access to food and clean water of hundreds of thousands of people are closely
linked to the land and environmental quality. The environmental damage that has
been done, and continues to be done, as a consequence of oil production in the
Niger Delta, has led to serious violations of human rights.”
Oil
spills, waste dumping and gas flaring
According to
Usikpedo, pollution has been affecting the area for decades. “This pollution
has damaged the soil, water and air quality. Hundreds of thousands of people
are affected, particularly the poorest and those who rely on traditional
livelihoods such as fishing and agriculture. People living in the Niger Delta
have to drink, cook with, and wash in polluted water; they eat fish
contaminated with oil and other toxins - if they are lucky enough to still be
able to find fish; the land they use for farming is being destroyed; after oil
spills the air they breathe reeks of oil and gas and other pollutants; they
complain of breathing problems, skin lesions and other health problems, but
their concerns are not taken seriously and they have almost no information on
the impacts of pollution.”
She says
that gas flaring – which occurs when oil is pumped out of the ground and the
gas produced is separated and then burnt as waste in massive flares – in
particular creates unique problems: “Flares, which continue for 24 hours a day
in many areas, cause serious discomfort to people living nearby with noise
pollution and some communities living with permanent light. When gas is flared,
the combustion is often incomplete, so oil droplets fall on waterways, crops,
houses and people.” Despite concerns raised by communities and health
professionals about the impact of gas flaring on people – in particular young
children, women, the elderly and those with underlying health problems, –
Usikpedo says “neither the government nor the oil companies have carried out
specific studies to look at the impacts of flaring on human health. This
serious failure leaves [thousands] of people facing unknown short- and
long-term risks. This requires decisive and swift action to investigate and
monitor their health status, to protect vulnerable groups and to end the practice
of flaring.”
A women’s
rights perspective of the environmental damage
The recent
court ruling was a result of years of struggle – since 2008 - by communities in
oil producing areas – assisted by environmental organisation Friends of the Earth. When
asked how women were raising their voices against the polluting oil company,
Usikpedo explains that for women, “environmental quality and sustainability are
fundamental to their overall wellbeing and development [because] the people in
the region depend on the natural environment as their principal or sole source
of food… they use it for agriculture, fishing and the collection of forest
products. Pollution and environmental damage pose significant risks to human
rights.”
The Niger
Delta Women’s movement for Peace and Development (NDWPD) was founded to provide
relief following crises and to address violence against women - explicitly for
poor and marginalised women and communities. Although poverty alleviation, social
welfare, environmental justice and community rights have been used to lobby
governments to take greater social responsibility Usikpedo asserts that “less
is done in relation to women’s health in the Niger Delta. Life expectancy has
reduced to 45 years of age for women. We said we cannot afford to be silent;
the time to act is now. We decided to carry out Gender and Climate
Justice Hearings in 2009 with rural women who directly bear the burden of the
impact of climate change and whose voices are least heard.”
The NDWPD is
a member of the Feminist
Task Force in collaboration with the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), Greenpeace
International and Inter
Press Service. NDWPD conducted three Justice hearings in the Delta – two in
2009 and one in 2011 - based on the model: “Strengthening Voices: Search
for Solutions: Women’s Tribunals on Gender and Climate Justice The
results of the 2009 hearings were presented at the civil society ‘Klimaforum’
in Copenhagen running concurrently to the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Conference
(COP15). The aim of the 2011 Climate Justice Hearing was to
up-scale local solutions and bring the voices of those most affected to
influence negotiations and plans of action on climate change at the national as
well as the international level during COP17 and Rio+
20.
In addition
to the hearings, the NDWPD has also carried out activities to enhance the
participation of stakeholders in the on-going global climate change debate such
as increasing the knowledge base and creating awareness among community leaders
and the political class. Usikpedo says they also wanted to “alert the
international community of the neglect exercised on rural women in rural
communities.”
Court
victory a small step forward
Despite the
victory in court in January for the farmer in Ikot Ada Udo, the NDWPD are
disappointed that a similar ruling on four other cases in neighbouring
communities Goi and Oruma is not forthcoming. The court concluded that there
was no proof that the spills at Goi in Rivers State and Oruma in Bayelsa State
were not cleaned up and that there was indeed no proof the spills were not caused by sabotage (Shell’s
defence argument in the case). The NDWPD are asking the court to review the
case, and are left asking why a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Report was not
enough evidence to warrant a ruling against Shell in these cases. The report
shows that “pollution from over 50 years of oil operations in the region has
penetrated further and deeper than many may have supposed…some areas, which
appear unaffected at the surface, are in reality severely contaminated
underground”. Usikpedo corroborates the UNEP evidence, saying that today “Goi is
a completely deserted land; people no longer live there due to the spill that
occurred in 2005 without clean up and compensation.” She goes on to say “I
think the court has ruled differently on these communities because they do not
want Shell to be held liable for the second time. The court was very biased in
this case, and were unjust, to avoid any precedents to be set”. Channa
Samkalden, a lawyer acting on behalf of the Nigerian farmers, said to Al Jazeera recently: “At least Shell was held liable
for one of the cases. That’s a good start. Also, a very important fact is that
the court has said that Shell has a duty to take measures to prevent sabotage,
which is of course a principal issue."
Usikpedo
hopes “the work on environmental rights by UNEP and the international
community, can avoid future tragedies such as the one which we are confronted
with in the Niger Delta.” She wants her work to reflect the reality that “women
in the Niger Delta are the most vulnerable - they bear the burden of the impact
of climate change, poverty and human rights violations.” The NDWPD are calling
on international communities to help raise awareness of the issues. “It is
important that we gain as much support and empowerment as possible to help us
in the campaign for peace and development in the Niger Delta, Nigeria.”
For more
information, contact Niger Delta Women’s movement for Peace and Development
E-Mail: nigerdeltawomen@gmail.com
[i] Not capable of being settled by law of by the action of
a court