On 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, WRM is sharing the podcast Women’s Struggles for Land. We have produced this in collaboration with the Coastal Women in Rebellion network from Mexico; the feminist organization Solidaritas Perumpuan, from Indonesia; and Aminata Finda Massaquoi, a journalist and the national coordinator of WORNAPI, a women’s advocacy network from Sierra Leone.
The podcast includes three episodes that tell three stories about women’s resistance in places where industrial oil palm plantations have invaded lands where communities used to grow their food, graze their animals, and collect fruit and medicine. One of the episodes also shows how women have organized to defend their territories – not only from oil palm companies, but also from carbon projects and a large-scale rice production program.
These stories reveal how companies and governments use and reinforce patriarchal structures to advance these projects, which are oppressive and violent towards women in multiple ways.
Women are usually excluded from the decision-making processes that result in the implementation of industrial plantations or carbon projects. “When multinational companies come, they engage men and exclude women from all the negotiations”, explains a woman featured in the episode Sierra Leone: Living and resisting surrounded by Socfin's plantations. Women from Malen chiefdom – which is now completely fenced in by oil palm monocultures – share their tragic experience of losing their farmlands, which previously guaranteed food and a regular source of income for them and their families. “They call this company Socfin but actually it should be called ‘Suffering’. Because their coming here has brought suffering upon us,” one of the women says.
Besides leaving no room for food production, oil palm monocultures also pollute the rivers and other water sources. This situation places a burden on women, who are usually in charge of providing food and water for their families, as well as caretaking tasks. The episode Women of the Chiapas coast facing oil palm describes this situation, and shares testimonies about how women have organized and taken action to create awareness among the communities to stop the plantations’ expansion.
Carbon offsetting projects in the forests, such as REDD projects, have also brought violence against women. These projects prevent women from using the forest as they traditionally did: they block women's access to food and medicine, and in so doing, undermine women's culture and knowledge. “With the oil palm and REDD projects, the knowledge that women have will ultimately disappear,” denounces a woman from Central Kalimantan Province, in Indonesia. The episode Dayak Women Defend the Forest of Tambun Bungai explains both the different forms of oppression that women face with these kinds of projects, and how they have organized to defend their territory.
On this 25 November we express our solidarity with women around the world who are organizing to expose patriarchal oppression and to fight for their land, their culture and their lives. STOP all forms of violence against women!!!