“We were like squirrels against an elephant,” says Margaret Kagole of the Mbibo Zikadde Women’s Group in Uganda. “The oil officials destroyed our crops, driving through with tractors, graders, wires and trucks.”
Kagole is one of many women in the country impacted by oil companies beginning exploration activities on their land without the free, prior and informed consent of the community.
In 2006, Uganda discovered an estimated 6.5 billion barrels of crude oil in its Albertine Graben region. Since then, government negotiations with oil companies seeking access to land for oil exploration, as well as the construction of roads and an airport, have been opaque with minimal public scrutiny. Development projects, supported by the government, have been characterized by displacement, forced migration, low compensation rates, violence, land degradation, loss of livelihoods, and increased military presence to ‘protect’ oil workers and installations.
