Environmental Insecurity and Erosion of Women Socio-economic Status in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

Abstract

The Niger Delta has been the hub of oil operations since 1958. Before the advent of oil, the people women mostly depended on the natural environment; fishing and farming for their livelihoods. However, oil operations in the region have been accompanied by unabated oil spillages and huge gas flares that have acutely despoiled the environment. The papers examine oil operations and environmental insecurity in the Niger Delta. The paper contends that oil operations have virtually stripped women of their known means of livelihoods, with no other alternative means of sustenance; leading to servile poverty. This has forced women into practices traditionally abhorred in the region for sustenance. The paper concludes that but for oil operations, women socio-economic status would not have been so adversely impacted and ingloriously diminished.