– Demands urgent international intervention for displaced women
Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Society for Women and Youths Affairs, SWAYA, has raised the alarm over issues and challenges faced by women who have been displaced, as a result of consistent oil spills and the ravaging flooding across the country.
Executive Director of SWAYA, Mrs. Stella Amanie, lamented that in Bodo, Ogoniland women have been forced out of their homes and out of their farms, due to continuous oil spills from the Trans Niger Pipeline in the area.
Amanie also regretted that women in Orashi region of Rivers State and across other states currently being ravaged by flood, have been forced into ill-equipped, inhabitable IDP camps, where there is no basic sanitary facility.
The women’s rights activist particularly lamented that women in rural areas were the most disadvantaged people in the country.
“As we mark the International Rural Women’s Day, I would like to bring two burning issues to light.
“Currently, women and their families are facing a devastating event at the Orashi region in Rivers State, as flood takes over their homes and ravaged their source of living.
“Also, I’d like to bring also to limelight the oil spillages in Bodo City, Ogoniland where because of the incessant oil spills in the area; women are seen scooping crude oil out of their farms, as they can’t the farms -their source of livelihood- is lost as their environment remains degraded.”
The SWAYA boss also called on oil multinationals, corporate organizations, philanthropists and donor agencies to intervene in the provision of aides to women in rural areas who have been displaced by the ravaging flood and oil pollution.
“The flood victims are in lack, they are displaced and lack food supplies to go around for these women and their families.
“I was also part of the African Women Climate Assembly that was hosted in Nigeria recently, where women from Africa gather to share experiences to unite for climate justice. We visited the flood victims in Rivers State and the spill sites in Bodo. Women in the IDP camps need help urgently.
“It will be of great help if international organisations, oil multinationals and donor agencies would be of help to people in these regions as these women and their families need supplies and basic healthcare,” Amanie added.
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