WoMin – The Journey from Research Initiative to an African Ecofeminist Alliance

Abstract

Oil was identified about five years ago in Nwoya district [Uganda]. They have started to install infrastructure and the [extraction site] is under tight
security. Since people discovered the oil, there has been land grabbing… so now people are buying up the land—government officials, prominent
businesspeople—in the name of investment. If these powerful figures discover that the people don’t have land titles, we will just wake up and
find ourselves with nothing. For women, the situation is tough. It is the women who are displaced. The men will take the compensation money
and find their own way to cope: concubines, drinking, drugs. But now the women with children have to find a place to live, like squatters. To survive,
many are forced to become casual labourers on big plantations owned by these top government officials, and they are paid peanuts.