About 150 women demanding jobs for their sons have occupied a ChevronTexaco oil terminal in Nigeria, preventing 700 workers, including Americans, Canadians and Britons, from leaving.

The unarmed women, from neighbouring Arutan and Igborodo communities, forced their way into the multimillion-dollar pipeline Escravos terminal on Monday. They want the company to hire their sons and provide electricity for their villages, said ChevronTexaco’s Nigeria spokesman, Wole Agunbiade. About 700 employees were working in the terminal on shifts lasting several weeks, Agunbiade said.

He did not identify the employees trapped inside, but a worker who answered the phone at the terminal said they included Americans, Canadians, Britons and Nigerians.

A company statement said the women were blocking docks, helicopter pads and an airstrip that provide the only entry points to the facility, which is surrounded by kilometres of Niger Delta rivers and swamps.

Agunbiade said the workers, who live at the terminal for weeks at a time, were not in any danger. However, the women had “barricaded installations and restricted free movement,” Agunbiade said. “People cannot do their normal jobs.”

“This is not a hostage situation. This is an occupation,” Agunbiade said.

The company said it was negotiating with the communities to end the demonstration and had called in security forces, although it was unclear if any were on the scene.

The spokesman said the protest has been peaceful, but the chanting women – many of whom wore bright printed dresses and carried bundles of food – had frozen movement on the docks and the oil tank farm.

Anunu Uwawah, a spokeswoman for the protesters, told reporters at Escravos that the women were tired of living in poverty in the shadow of the oil terminal. She said everyone in the area lives without electricity except for those in one village where ChevronTexaco’s Nigerian unit has an office.

“We will no longer take this nonsense and this is the beginning of the trouble they have been looking for,” Uwawah was quoted as saying by the Punch newspaper.

Oil companies operating in the Niger Delta are accustomed to dealing with armed young men who demand jobs and protection money, but Agunbiade said women protesters presented new complications.

“These are daughters and wives; you would not treat them the same way you treat males,” he said, without elaborating.

The spokesman said ChevronTexaco would be able to meet itsNigerian production quota for July despite the disruption.

The people in the Niger Delta are among the poorest in Nigeria. The land they live on, however, is the source of Nigeria’s $20-billion in annual oil exports.

The people in the region demand that the multinationals pumping out the oil give them the roads, water service and electricity that the government has not provided.

The Niger Delta was recently declared one of the world’s worst kidnap risk zones by insurers Aon and Broker Asset Management due to the practice of locals taking foreign and Nigerian oil workers hostage and demanding ransom. Hostages are rarely harmed.

Oil companies publicly deny giving ransoms, but some executives have privately admitted to paying.

Canadian Press,  July 11, 2002