Ogbodo Oil Spills: Women Most Devastated

Even though women suffered most of the brunt of the economic damages that oil spills and fire disasters have brought to Ogbodo and Adanta, they have never been well compensated when companies reach out to the communities with palliatives and monetary compensation.
The women of the community, seem to be the worst devastated from the disasters. Their primary economic activities are tied to the land and they have lost valuable farmlands and waters, where they eke out a living for themselves and their families.
Mrs. Ada Okoro said, “There is no snail again. You can’t GO inside the bush and pick snail right from when this bunkering started. Things are very harsh. Look at garri. A basin of garri N9,000, getting to N10,000. I am suffering so much. I am doing labour. When I do job for people, they pay me N2,000, at times, N1,500. There is no other thing I particularly do. I don’t have help apart from God in heaven.”
Ada also said reptiles like snakes are also disappearing from the bush. “The air of this bunkering, the smoke is killing everything.”
She admitted that the families were collecting money from illegal bunkerers but, only men were getting the monies. “Even when they bring money, they are paying it to families and they are giving only men. They don’t remember women. Each family gets a share. And they share for men. Me, I am not in husband’s compound. I am paying house rent in another compound. So, they don’t give me. Even when they were sharing palliative, they did not give me because they were sharing from compound to compound.
“They are giving to men alone. They don’t give to women; family by family. That’s how they share to the men, not women.
Teresa Turner of the Niger Delta Women for Justice and Friends of the Earth Nigeria, a civil society organization that worked with women in Ogbodo, noted that the women of Ogbodo were crucial in their role in building the bridges between the community and non-governmental organizations.
“They actively worked with the NGOs to document the economic and health impacts on their community by Shell’s spill,” Niger Delta Women for Justice and Friends of the Earth Nigeria admitted that it has used its experience with Ogbodo people to lead a global campaign point out many human rights violations by Shell and other oil multinationals in Nigeria.
“The situation affected them most as they could no longer go to the waters to pick seafood, make palm oil, grow their vegetables or source their herbs for medicinal use.
“It is women’s daily life in particular that has been affected by the spill. As the traditional gendered division of labour allocates them the responsibilities to gather the seafood in the mangroves, make the palm oil, grow and collect the vegetables and medicinal herbs, all resources polluted or killed by the spill, in the medium and long-term, it is women’s social power and status that is being undermined,” it said.
Women in the community have complained that anytime compensations were paid to the community over oil spills and other land matters, they were never considered to benefit. One of the women, who gave her name as Grace told National Point that even when the compensation touched directly on the crops or land that the women were cultivating, the men took the compensation and left them with nothing.
Asked if they got compensation whenever companies paid for damage to the land, Grace said, “If they are doing such a thing, it’s only for men.”
She said the denial of compensation to women was often done out of greed by those in charge of the compensation. “Those who feel they have the upper hand they would be the one that would eat it (the compensation money),” she said.
And what are they as women doing to correct the trend. “Nothing! You will hear that they want to compensate after the damage. We would be waiting and nothing will happen.”