FRIDAY FILE - 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
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.”
Additional informationFor more information, contact Niger Delta Women’s movement for Peace and Development email: nigerdeltawomen@gmail.com
Download statement: Landmark Victory against Shell Oil Not Enough
Read the Gender and Climate Justice report on Niger Delta by NDWPD on the Feminist Task Force gender and climate justice blog: www.climatejusticetribunals.blogspot.comWatch the video on the 2009 Niger Delta Women's Tribunal on Climate Justice
http://feministtaskforce.org/videos-2/
[i] Not capable of being settled by law of by the action of a court