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this is an excerpt from an article in today's guardian:
...The Goliath in the case - ChevronTexaco - has been forced to promise jobs, electricity and other improvements to villages in the Niger Delta after 600, mainly Itsekiri tribeswomen stormed the company's huge Escravos oil terminal, bringing it to a standstill for 10 days.
The activists, aged from 30 to 90, were led by a core group of middle-aged women affectionately known as "the mamas". And they had one simple but effective weapon: they threatened to remove all their clothes. The gesture, known as "the curse of nakedness", is a traditional way of shaming people and remains as potent as ever.
"The mere threat of it would send people running," says Sokari Ekine, international representative for Niger Delta Women for Justice and author of Blood and Oil: Testimonies of Violence from Women. "These are mature women and for mothers and grandmothers to threaten to strip is the most powerful thing they can do. It's a very, very strong weapon. Chevron is American, but they have Nigerian men working for them, and women are held in particular esteem in Nigeria - and if a woman of 40 or 70 takes her clothes off a man is just going to freeze."
Protesters say it is particularly important for women to get involved in the current campaigns against the oil firms which dominate the region. Women are often targeted by the brutal federal police and army, which are used by a government desperate to suppress any protest that might scare off foreign companies. Enrique Restoy, a researcher on Nigeria for Amnesty International, says there is no evidence of direct links between overseas firms and human rights violations by soldiers, but adds: "What's very clear is that the government is doing whatever it takes for these companies to stay."
Rapes, beatings, prostitution and murder by soldiers are all common, and attacks on men also have an indirect effect on women. "When a man is harmed, whether he is a father or husband or son, that impacts very strongly," says Ekine. "For example, when women are widowed, quite often they are disinherited or ostracised."
All this helps to explain why women in the delta are so angry. "We will no longer take this nonsense; this is the beginning of the trouble they have been looking for," warns Anunu Uwawah, one of the protest organisers. "I give one piece of advice to all women in all countries: they shouldn't let any company cheat them."
The women say they had waited in vain for three weeks for a response to a list of demands before losing patience and hijacking and occupying the docks, airfield, gas plant and tank farm.
As the multi-million pound operation ground to a halt, company negotiators swung into action, pledging to improve sanitation, electrify villages and build schools, clinics and town halls. They also promised to employ 25 locals for five years and to build chicken and fish farms. |
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