Thursday, September 12th, 2024 | By
During their recent interaction meetings at the close of August 2024, EACOP affected women under the Grassroots Women Movement led by National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) expressed dismay over continued land grabbing, gender based violence, forced evictions and hunger and also increased environmental degradation which have left women in the livelihood hardships.
“We thought it was oil and prosperity, the productive land for agriculture has been taken for oil and gas developments as speculators and rich people grab land leaving women- who have for long lived on the land for survival- in livelihood hardships. We are suffering with accelerated food insecurity, climate change effects and ecosystems depletion,” said Justine Nyakalaya, a resident of Kakindo village in Buliisa town council.
According to the women, the communities are feeling the pinch of negative impacts of extractives including increased cases of violence against women, girls and children, gender based violence, food insecurity, and violation of human rights due to the massive infrastructure development for oil and gas.
“Our communities are already experiencing food insecurity fueled by oil and gas developments which have increased cases of land grabbing due to the pipeline, airport and refinery projects in our area,” said Rukanyanga. “Besides that gender based violence sparked by food insecurity, land grabbing and unfair compensation has increased. In 2022, National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) established a safe space at our office with trained caretakers to handle cases of gender based violence but in a year, we register over 300 cases which mostly affect women,” she said.
According to Rukanyanga, they have continuously been stifled by government for defending the rights of people affected by crude oil activities commending the work NAPE and the Green radio are doing to ensure women are well organized and well-coordinated to collectively defend their rights through movement building.
The women further appreciated the Community Green Radio for amplifying their voices and giving them a platform to speak up and collectively resist the negative impacts of oil and gas extractives.
“Community Green Radio has been instrumental in putting our voices on the airwaves so that we can talk about the issues affecting us, contribute to and initiate conversations within our community about the challenges we face, the solutions and how to hold our leaders accountable,” said Sylvia Kemigisa of Kaiso Women Empowerment agency thanking partners such as 11th Hour, American Jewish world Service and Woman Kind World Wide who are supporting Women Organizing and the Green radio Outreach Advocacy Work.
The women say they have been targeted by government to silence them not to talk about the negative impacts of oil and gas but Community Green Radio has given them the safe space to speak out collectively against Oil injustices they face.
“Even when we are not allowed to hold meetings, the Community Green Radio journalists often record our voices and play them on radio,” said Sylvia Kemigisa, the Chairperson of Kaiso Women Empowerment Agency.
They called on Community Green Radio journalists to make more frequent visits and coverage of oil and gas injustices amidst economic hardships noting that their remote and hard to reach locations quite often put them at a disadvantage making them suffer in silence against negative impacts of the many oil and gas infrastructure hosted in their localities singling out Oil well pads, oil pipelines, central processing facilities and oil roads.
Rajab Bwengye, the coordinatorof projects at NAPE said the Green radio’s aim is to strengthen the voices of grass root women and youths, give them an advocacy platform and shape interventions on issues affecting them. He pledged for continued coverage of their issues and putting their voices on the airwaves.
“Women are the experts of their own lives. They know better the issues affecting them than anybody else and that’s why as Community Green Radio, we have created safe spaces for them to be heard and be part of the conversation on oil and gas injustices,” said Bwengye.
SheliaMuwanga, the Country representative of American Jewish World Service (AJWS) who joined the NAPE team on the Women Solidarity campaigns against extractives in the Oil rift called on Women not to give up but rather continue to mobilize and defend collectively against corporate capture.
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