Breaking the Silence: Violence against women in and around industrial oil palm and rubber plantations
Breaking the Silence: Harassment, sexual violence and abuse against women in and around industrial oil palm and rubber plantations.
read moreWomen and Plantations
Worldwide, gender relations are unequal in many ways, for example, in the division of work and power between the sexes. Unsurprisingly, industrial tree plantations have different effects on women and men and can reinforce existing inequalities. When areas are deforested or otherwise substituted by industrial tree plantations, the division of labor between women and men generally undergoes severe changes, affecting especially women. The weakening of men´s role in production of food and other products for local and regional uses that is common when local ecosystems are destroyed and large-scale plantations set up has subjected women to rising rates of alcoholism among their partners as well as greater domestic violence and violence and sexual exploitation from outside workers. While for women, a job in the plantation could mean a way to earn a salary and gain autonomy, jobs rarely change existing unequal gender relations and can even aggravate the situation and lives of women.
Actions
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Petition: Stop all forms of abuse against women in large monoculture tree plantations
On occasion of September 21st, International day of Struggle against Tree Plantations, women from several countries from West and Central Africa have taken the initiative to release simultaneously the petition we enclose below. The...
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Articles from the WRM Bulletin
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Nigeria: Okomu’s oil palm plantations bring misery for women living in their vicinity
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Liberia: Women raising their voices in decision-making processes
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Letter from the Collective of Women affected by monoculture oil palm from Gabon to FAO
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Indonesia: Oil palm plantations and their trace of violence against women
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Indonesia: Exploitation of women and violation of their rights in oil palm plantations
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India: Plantations uproot women from their customary forests
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Dekel Oil’s false promises lure villagers into dangerous oil palm growing contracts in Cote d’Ivoire
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Covered under the shade of oil palm companies in Cameroon: A recount of the abuses that women suffer
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Cameroon: Urban and Rural Activists Against Industrial Plantations’ Abuses Towards Women
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Cameroon: Local women besieged by the military, guardians of the palm oil plantations of SOCAPALM
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Agribusiness and environmental injustice: impacts on the health of rural women
2018
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Women’s Struggle: for Food Sovereignty; against violence and agribusiness!
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Josefina and the Water Springs against Pine Plantations in Ecuador’s Páramos
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Forestry Community Forum: Community mobilisation in plantation forestry
2015
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Women’s roles, rights and responsibility in natural resources: Some reflections from Mekong Region
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Changes in family life: Observations on eucalyptus and women in Mato Grosso do Sul
2014
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Women oil palm plantation workers in Asia: Gender inequity and exploitation
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Oil palm plantation workers in Central America: The experience of Rel-UITA
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New crossroads, same actors: The green economy of the powerful, voices of resistance of women
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Honduras: Women fighting for land against a backdrop of violence and murders
2012
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Oil palm in Benin: From small-scale production by women to large-scale corporate industry
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Nyéléni: A woman’s name for the struggle for Food Sovereignty
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Brazil: Women in Camp Sister Dorothy Stang – for their right to life, against monoculture eucalyptus
2011
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Uruguay: A place where the lies about plantations are all too obvious
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Papua New Guinea: Women in Oil Palm Association become empowered
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Bénin : la “modernisation” de la production d’huile de palme marginalise les femmes
2010
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Papua New Guinea: Women against further expansion of oil palm
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Nigeria: Michelin’s rubber plantations destroyed women’s livelihoods
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Brazil: On Women’s day, peasant women struggle against tree plantations
2009
Books and Briefings
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Booklet: 12 Tactics Palm Oil Companies Use to Grab Community Land
The booklet “Promise, Divide, Intimidate and Coerce: 12 tactics palm oil companies use to grab community land” aims to support communities who want to strengthen their resistance and better prepare themselves to stop corporations from establishing on their lands.
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Impacts of Large Scale Oil Palm Plantations on Women
A Collection of Articles Published in the WRM Bulletin on the issue of Resistance, Women and the Impacts of Plantations.
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Another lie from oil palm companies: they claim to prevent violence against women
“12 Replies to 12 Lies about Oil Palm Monoculture Plantations” has been updated. The publication now includes a chapter about how oil palm companies lie when they say they respect women’s rights.
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12 Replies to 12 Lies about Oil Palm monocultures plantations – new layout
This report aims at strengthening the struggles of all those who are opposing large-scale oil palm plantations in the global South. After expanding in Indonesia and Malaysia for decades, large expansions have more recently been occurring...
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An overview of industrial tree plantations in the global South: conflicts, trends, and resistance struggles.
After many years of supporting local struggles and disseminating information from different countries on tree monocultures and its impacts, WRM presents a new report to all those involved in these struggle (1). No better time than the...
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Women, Communities and Plantations in Ecuador
By Ivonne Ramos and Nathalia Bonilla Testimonials on a socially and environmentally destructive forestry model Joint Research of Acción Ecológica and WRM Women, Communities and Plantations in...
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Women and Eucalyptus. Stories of Life and Resistance
Impacts of Eucalyptus Monocultures on Indigenous and Afrobrazilian Women in the State of Espírito Santo. By Gilsa Barcellos and Simone Ferreira Women and Eucalyptus. Stories of Life and Resistance Also available in Portuguese Mulheres...
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Women, forests and plantations. The gender Dimension
By the World Rainforest Movement Selection of articles published in the monthly electronic bulletin of the World Rainforest Movement, addressing the gender dimension of the impacts in the forests of plantations Women, forests and...
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News
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We Denounce and Resist the Green Economy’s Impacts on Women and Forests
Declaration by the World Rainforest Movement (WRM), March 2016 To Berta Cáceres and the Lenca People, the struggle continues! In March, the world commemorates two important dates: International Women’s Day (March 8) and...
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International Women’s Day 2007: Struggling for food sovereignty
By the World Rainforest Movement – March 2007. At the beginning of the twentieth century, women’s struggles for emancipation took on greater visibility. They were times of social and political transformations and women started...
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International Women’s Day 2006: Homage to Women’s Struggle in Forests and Plantations
By the World Rainforest Movement. 8 March 2006. On the International Women’s Day, the World Rainforest Movement wants to pay homage to the innumerable women that have played and still play an essential role in the governance and...
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Other Relevant Information
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Press release: Organizations Denounce the RSPO for Greenwashing the Oil Palm Industry’s Destruction and Violence
On November 12, with the endorsement of organizations from five continents, Friends of the Earth International and World Rainforest Movement publish an open statement denouncing the failure of the RSPO to eliminate the violence and destruction that oil palm plantations.
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Letter from the Collective of Women affected by monoculture oil palm from Gabon to FAO
Within the framework of September 21, International day of Struggle against Monoculture Tree Plantations, women affected by OLAM’s oil palm plantations, during a meeting in the village of Fera, in Gabon, decided to send a letter to FAO...
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Sign the statement! RSPO: 14 years failing to eliminate violence and destruction from the industrial palm oil sector
We invite organizations to sign on and support the statement, which denounces that the RSPO, since it was created 14 years ago, has been a tool that served the corporate interests of the oil palm sector
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Declaration: No to abuse against women in industrial oil palm plantations
We said it in Mundemba, Cameroon, we reiterated it in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, we re-affirm this in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire: the abuse against women in and around industrial oil palm plantations must STOP!
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Press release: Women demand that oil palm companies stop violence and give back community land
International Press release. March 7, 2018. Women demand that oil palm companies stop violence and give back community land On 8 March, International Women’s Day, hundreds of organizations and individuals demand an end to the violence...
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Sign the petition! African women demand that oil palm companies give back their land and stop the violence
Support African women! Sign the petition included on this article by filling the form enclosed below. Organized women who live around industrial oil palm plantations denounce different forms of violence. The United Nations proposed 16...
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West African women defend traditional palm oil
A video produced by GRAIN shows how rural women in West Africa are working to protect traditional palm oil production in the face of the destructive expansion of industrial oil palm plantations. See the video...
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Mundemba declaration and statement of solidarity
Women, communities say NO to the expansion of oil palm plantations and industrial palm oil Each year on 17 April, peasants and food sovereignty advocates commemorate the International day of peasant struggle. Twenty years have passed...
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Statement of solidarity with the communities of Ndian Division, Southwest Region of Cameroon
We are 40 participants who have united in Mundemba, Cameroon, for an international workshop on the tactics and strategies of oil palm companies, from 28 to 31 January 2016. We have gathered to share our experiences from Cameroon, West and...
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Mundemba Declaration: Women and the expansion of oil palm plantations and industrial palm oil
Women resist industrial palm oil (Photo: JVE-Cameroun) Considering that the aspiration to human dignity is a common ideal for humankind, and that the United Nations Charter asserts this aspiration in its preamble and in the Universal...
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Resisting Militarism – World March of Women | 8th March, 2016
Dear sisters, friends, activists and fellow fighters, In recent days, the world has been getting ready to celebrate the 8thof March, International Women’s Day, a date that is commemorated all over the world by unions, organisations,...
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Gender impact of oil palm plantations among indigenous peoples in Sarawak
An article from the recently launched book “Gender and Land Tenure in the context of Disaster in Asia”, examines the impact of changing land use and land tenure systems in Sarawak on human rights, livelihoods, and local gender...
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Women groups converge in parallel to the Southern Africa Development Community Heads of State Summit (14-18 August)
Women from all corners of the Southern African region descended on Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, to participate in the People’s Summit. They aimed to share their experiences on how they have been affected either by decisions made by governments...
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The invisibility of women and plantations in the CBD
By the WRM The CBD recognized in 1992 the “vital role of women in the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity” and affirmed “the need for the full participation of women at all levels of policy-making and...
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Videos
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Women and Climate Change
Produced by Gender CC, Women for Climate Justice , with the support of the WRM International Secretariat Directed by Flavio Pazos Voice: Lori Nordstrom Based on the work of: Ana Filippini – WRM Andrea Guzmán – CENPROTAC,...
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Women raise their voices against tree plantations. Testimonies from Brazil, Nigeria and Papua New Guinea
By the World Rainforest Movement and Forest and Biodiversity Program of Friends of the Earth International Screenplay: Flavio Pazos Script: WRM International Secretariat Team Voices: Cecilia Carrère, Ana Filippini, Raquel Nuñez, Teresa...
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