Nigerian Leadership Should Take Systemic Action on Discrimination, Violence against Women

Interview

Bekeme Masade-Olowola, Chief Executive of CSR-in-Action and executive producer of Earth Women, in this interview THISDAY, speaks about the travails of Nigerian women being the worst victims of the adverse effects of mining, oil and gas exploration and solutions to reverse their misfortunes. Excerpt:

What is the central theme of Earth Women?

Earth Women’s central theme revolves revolving around gender-based violence, discrimination, oppression and suppression, health and safety issues faced by women in artisanal mining and exploration, rape and prostitution spearheaded by expatriates and locals, culture-promoted human rights abuses with the aim of educating and driving the Nigerian leadership and populace into taking systemic action on gender discrimination and gender-based violence in extractive communities.

What inspired you to produce the documentary?

Our inspiration is drawn largely from the desire for social justice for women whose voices may not be heard due to their disadvantaged positions in society. The challenges in the Niger Delta, for instance, are well known across the country. Most times, you find people drawing attention to how these communities are suffering, but there is no one to talk about what has happened to women specifically as a direct or indirect result of these problems. Women are often the worst victims of the adverse effects of mining and oil and gas exploration, but their stories have remained largely untold because their voices are often silenced in male-dominated societies. Earth Women seeks to give voices to these women so that the larger society and maybe, the international community can hear them.

What determined your choice of setting?

Earth Women is set mostly in the Niger Delta, precisely in Kegbara Dere (K’Dere) in the Gokana area of Rivers State. Certain parts of the documentary are also set in Badagry, Lagos, where oil exploration activities take place, and there are scenes from Jos where tin mining takes place, although that footage is not owned by us. All these places are extractive communities, and although our initial plan was to go to at least six communities in the different regions, time, insecurity, and financing would not allow us. Our choice of setting was primarily determined by our objectives, foremost among which is to tell the stories of women impacted by the work of extractive companies, and this is all over the country as portions of the entire country are blessed with these resources.

What were the challenges faced during the production?

The major challenges faced were four-fold – security, access into the communities, the willingness of the subjects to be available and vulnerable and budget. As we all know, the security situation in the Niger Delta and in the North is bad, with perhaps a little improvement in the Delta recently. Nevertheless, we had to mobilise private security for the trip to the Niger Delta communities. More importantly, we liaised with respected people from these communities who briefed us ahead and helped us connect with the people. Another was shooting in different locations with a complete crew, which also meant footage from Badagry needed to be integrated with that from River. This ended up increasing our budget.

What is your desired impact for Earth Women?

Our desired impact is for the world to listen to these women and other women like them across Africa. Not only that, we want the major stakeholders who have the power to make changes to be moved into action on the issue of oil pollution and other ill effects of extractive activities. Look at the Niger Delta and the amount of degradation that has been caused by oil spills. In addition to this, you have sporadic violence caused by youth agitation and oil theft. These problems have caused women to be in even more disadvantaged positions, with many of them subjected to rape, sex work, and other sexual and physical violence from men. In other areas of the country, including Kaduna and Zamfara, where artisanal mining is happening, discrimination against female miners is prevalent.

We understand that this issue is complex, and solving the problems in the extractive industries will require a multi-stakeholder approach. This will involve the government and its regulatory agencies, extractive companies and community leaders sitting together to fashion out holistic and sustainable solutions.

What are the negative effects of extractive activities on women, and how can these problems be solved?

Due to cultural practices and poor economic status, women are typically discriminated against in many communities. However, the harmful effects of extractive activities make these challenges worse and put women at risk of being held responsible. For instance, a man whose farmland has been destroyed due to oil pollution may start assaulting his wife due to the frustration of it. A man whose wife cannot conceive or has miscarriages due to the introduction of dangerous chemicals to the environment may tag her as being barren. In addition to this, many women are forced into sex work and casual sex to make ends meet. Some become victims of rape or are assaulted.

Like I said earlier, it is a concerted effort, but the federal and state governments have to take the lead by stimulating the conditions under which solutions can be easily attained. I believe that both the government and the extractive companies must compensate these women directly by not only giving them stipends for a tenured time but business grants, including programs to educate them intellectually and practically. Non-governmental organisations also have a huge role to play, but they need support from for-profit entities. We need to continue to highlight these problems so that the society at large, and particularly the critical stakeholders, will listen and act.

Earth Women is part of an initiative called SITEI-Woman. What is it all about?

SITEI means, Sustainability in the Extractive Industries. It was over 10 years ago that we founded and implemented the SITEI initiative, with its annual flagship conference, to foster through-the-year advocacy around equity amongst the key oil and gas and mining stakeholders – business, government, and community, with emphasis on women and youth rights. However, since September 2020, we officially commenced the focussed SITEI-Woman programme, aimed at the rural womenfolk in extractive host communities.

In many countries, women have been largely excluded from the growth and the development opportunities given by extractive industries in communities while being at the same time disproportionately vulnerable to many of the risks associated with them. It is a truism that while the extractive industries hold promises for host communities’ progress, they pose more risk than an opportunity for women and girls, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic, with increased risk for gender-based violence and World Bank statistics pegging the percentage of women who have suffered gender-based violence at a conservative one out of five. In the extractives, especially in small-scale mining, where women are adversely impacted by inefficient and poor processing techniques, while there are anecdotal and academic narratives of these effects on the very poor and vulnerable women who operate at the bottom of the cadre, there is hardly visual representation.

For these reasons, we intend to tactfully question and reverse norms that have culturally and systematically hampered women’s progress, with a special focus on equity, inclusion, justice and gender-based violence in host communities in Nigeria. We intend to use existing socio-cultural networks that cater to the specific needs of women and have organised training, a radio drama that caters to different language needs – in Pidgin and Hausa – and now, this docudrama to enlighten women and menfolk alike, including community leaders and gatekeepers, to drive the consciousness and demand for inclusion and fiscal and social justice. We are also pushing for the adoption of the Community Engagement Standards, which advocates 30 per cent women’s representation in decision-making – and its recommendations for institutions to have a gender policy and to conduct gender impact assessments prior to project commencement.

What do you do at CSR-in-Action?

CSR-in-Action Consulting Ltd. is an 11-year-old independent consulting company whose teams work globally with enterprises to research and develop insights into building environmental, social and governance capacity, aligning company business objectives with community values and preparing communities for complex change, and a corporate household name with a strong reputation for integrity and performance. The organisation uses systems leadership to forge community and corporate governance, primarily in extractive communities, with the end goal being sustainable development through social justice and accountability.

The business is broadly structured into three distinct operations (CSR-in-Action Advocacy, Consulting, and College of Sustainable Citizenship), providing different solutions to different stakeholder groups and redefining the sustainability terrain in Africa through collaborative strategies with stakeholders aimed at attaining higher levels of corporate governance, workplace and sustainable philanthropy, through challenging societal norms on women, youth, and environmental, human rights and compliance structures.

CSR-in-Action Consulting has championed initiatives, including bringing the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to Nigeria in 2011, which is the most recognised standard for measuring a business’ sustainability behaviour and is used by over 74 per cent of Fortune 500 companies, and remaining their singular key partner in these parts to date. The organisation has also set up numerous sustainability-focused networks on behalf of business leaders in Nigeria, including the Business Coalition for Sustainable Development Nigeria (BCSDN), the Telecommunication and Technology Sustainability Working Group (TTSWG), Women in Manufacturing in Africa and the Association of Sustainability Professionals of Nigeria (ASPN).

CSR-in-Action Advocacy works to shape policy around marginalised communities, is a founding member of the Women in Extractives Initiative, an initiative aimed at driving women’s inclusion in governance at various levels, starting with host communities, is the first private sector member of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Nigeria, has consultative status with United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), is a member of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and is a member of the Gold Community of the GRI, Amsterdam.

The CSR-in-Action College of Sustainable Citizenship has trained over 200 business professionals and over 350 non-profit professionals from the leading organisations in country. The company has branches in Nigeria and Canada.

How does sustainability benefit organisations in Nigeria today?

Sustainability is all about meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of others or future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability is, therefore, wide-reaching and encompasses everything we do to make sure that we take care of people, the planet and profit in the handling of our business. As the world grapples with modern challenges like make-shift cities, climate change and globalisation, sustainability is becoming increasingly important, not just as a practice but as a critical component of business and government strategy. In Nigeria, this transformation is also happening, albeit more slowly.

Companies whose business strategies have sustainability elements – human rights, environmental management, good corporate governance and other social considerations – incorporated stand a better chance of being transferable over generations. Today, we can boldly say that sustainability is tied to the bottom line. For instance, extractive communities have been known to spend more money on remedies when they haven’t put measures in place to forestall future conflict.

According to NEITI, women make up just 18 per cent of the workforce in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. What can be done to increase female participation?

I believe that while rural women still have a way to go, we, the urban women, have a critical role to play in lifting ourselves through training, enterprise and coaching – coaching for me being the mental game of helping other women shed cultural biases embedded in their psyche. Whereas the core operations of the extractive sector have long been viewed as a man’s job, thanks to technology, which has negated the need for brute strength, women are performing excellently in Nigeria and abroad in these roles. Nevertheless, beyond what the women can do by themselves, there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way societies are structured for equity. For instance, in some cultures in the Niger Delta, it is the women who farm, but only men own the land. So, when land is fruitful, they may decide to take it from the women because they do not own it.