Both projects are run by international oil giants and funded in part by multilateral public banks that are dominated by energy-thirsty industrialised nations. It is poised to make a final funding decision on the highly controversial Sakhalin II project.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline will run 1, miles, from the Sangachal terminal near Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, through Georgia and to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Production is due to start in with 60 percent going to the Japanese market. In the case of the Russian project, the groups say it has brought considerably fewer employment opportunities to local women than originally promised, with catering and cleaning accounting for most jobs.
Working conditions for women employed in cleaning and catering are often viewed by locals as unacceptable as they entail very long hours, which decrease the time for their family responsibilities and personal activities. It says that local women were both embarrassed and alarmed about the indications of increased prostitution, and have experienced sexual harassment and crime as a result of contact between the pipeline workers and resident populations. During the construction of the pipeline, there were an increased number of foreigners as well as workers from other regions within the country, bringing the development of related businesses such as restaurants and hotels.
As a result, the amount of drug use, prostitution and alcohol consumption increased. The groups behind the report held it up as further evidence that the institutions backing the projects should either stop bankrolling them or insist on much tougher social and environmental standards, something the companies involved have resisted because of the added costs of stronger environmental measures.
Zuckerman says that public lenders should take steps to curb abuse of women and integrate better gender protections in their lending safeguards. Those lenders have no rules to recognise the rights of women by ensuring that social management, community development, and consultations reach out to women and protect them from gender-based human rights violations, the report says. Critics say such big projects have traditionally brought limited and short-term employment opportunities, and often fail to provide promised support for local communities or to help alleviate poverty.
