Violence, poverty, homelessness: Social costs of resource development are mostly borne by women, Amnesty report reveals

For weeks a lot of international attention has been focused on North Dakota, where hundreds of protesters backed by more than 1.4 million online supporters are supporting the Sioux’s bid to stop construction of a pipeline.

Arrests, tear gas, violence and even a herd of buffalo showing up may be the reasons behind the global interest. Because if the news hook is indigenous people defending their land from the impacts of resource development, there’s a much bigger story in northeast B.C.

For years, indigenous and non-indigenous people have been fighting the B.C. government and its power company, which is pushing through a massive hydroelectric project that will flood more than 100 kilometres of the Peace River valley.

The Site C dam will destroy hundreds of cultural and historic sites, including grave sites. It will undermine First Nations’ ability to hunt and make it impossible to fish in the area for at least a generation.

Northeast B.C. is already dotted with oil, gas and coal extraction projects that have fragmented the landscape, destroyed habitat and disrupted traditional hunting, fishing and gathering grounds.

Amnesty International‘s aptly named case study of the region ’s resource development — Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind — was released Thursday.

It came three days after the largely unreported B.C. Supreme Court decision rejecting the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations’ application to have work stopped on the dam until the province engages in “meaningful consultation.”

Amnesty has already opposed the Site C dam, citing the lack of consultation with First Nations. But its latest report argues that the approval processes themselves are flawed. Not only is no consideration given to the cumulative effects of development in a region, but there is also no analysis to determine whether the benefits are equally shared between men and women — even though it’s required by federal law.

“… none are more disadvantaged than aboriginal women, who are four times more likely to experience violence than other women and have access to even fewer services”

Among the Amnesty report’s conclusions is that far from reaping the benefits of natural resource extraction, women are at greater risk of violence, poverty, hunger and homelessness.

And none are more disadvantaged than aboriginal women, who are four times more likely to experience violence than other women and have access to even fewer services. They also have lower wages and face discrimination in hiring for any jobs, including those in the resource sector.

But it’s the violence that three women from the region focused on Thursday.

Helen Knott, a social worker and Site C protest organizer, told of her rape by transient workers.

Judy Maas talked about her sister, Cynthia, who was murdered along the Highway of Tears in 2010.

Connie Greyeyes, a director of the Fort St. John Women’s Resource Society, spoke about her niece, who was doused with gasoline and lit on fire. She named each of her dozen or so other friends and relatives who have been victims of violence.

The report’s authors admitted there are no good statistics to back the anecdotal link drawn between heightened violence and transient resource workers, even though the report references three decades of studies.

But it’s because no detailed data is ever collected on perpetrators. And it’s well documented that most women don’t report sexual violence.

Filling those data gaps is what Amnesty is arguing for, with gender-based analysis and examining the social costs of resource development on a wider scale rather than simply project by project.

Only with that kind of baseline data, it says, can governments protect the human rights of women, indigenous people and others in those communities.

But we know that resource workers are overwhelmingly young, male and transient, and are known to “blow off steam” with often destructive and anti-social behaviour.

Since they have flooded into the region, the per-capita crime rate in Fort St. John has risen to twice that of Vancouver. One in five cases heard at the Fort St. John courthouse are related to domestic violence. Rates of alcohol consumption, alcohol-related deaths and drug offences in the region are now among the highest in B.C.

Yet violence isn’t the only social cost. The regional wage gap between men and women is almost double the national average, putting housing and other living costs beyond women’s means.

As poverty law advocate Sylvia Lane told the authors: “Many women are just one argument with their spouse away from being on the streets.”

No one doubts the economic benefits of resource development.

Even without Site C and Premier Christy Clark’s long-promised liquefied natural gas development, energy projects in northeast B.C. account for 3.3 per cent of B.C.’s gross domestic product and nine per cent of its exports.

So, why aren’t governments ensuring that the health, safety and human rights of its own citizens are protected?

Economic development alone is not enough. The very least we ought to expect from our governments are adequate services and support to offset potentially higher rates of violence and crime, higher housing costs and, of course, a sudden increased demand at food banks when the boom cycle goes bust.