Systemic Change Photography Prize

This photo-documentary tells the story of the resistance that the Indigenous people of the Ecuadorian Amazon have waged against extractive companies that threaten their territories through continuous concessions and contamination caused by the oil company Texaco, during its presence in the country. In 1964, Texaco (now Chevron), arrived in Ecuador with a concession of 1.5 million hectares in the provinces of Sucumbíos and Orellana. At that time, they were extracting oil from the 450,000 hectares in their ownership. The oil giant admitted in court to having dumped 19 billion gallons of crude oil and harmful chemicals directly into unlined rivers and pools in a particularly biodiverse region of the Ecuadorian rainforest over decades. The inhabitants of the region suffered the consequences of extraction, their health and future were affected by contaminants present in the soil and groundwater, quantities exceeding permissible levels in Ecuador.

The targeting of women’s bodies in times of war, but also in times of peace, has come to light as a systematic strategy that has been used by different actors in many different contexts worldwide. This project has analyzed the condition of Eritrean and Tigrinya women who moved across the borders of three countries geopolitically linked to one another: Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan. From 2017 to 2019, the work has documented Eritrean women fleeing from one of the most repressive regimes in the world and seeking refuge in Ethiopia. From November 2020, following the invasion of Tigray (Ethiopia) by the Ethiopian Federal Army supported by the Eritrean military forces and Amhara militia, the project’s focus has broadened to include also the Tigrinya women, who joined Eritrean women in their escape from Ethiopia to Sudan. In Tigray, the Eritrean army used sexual violence as a weapon of war against both Eritrean and Tigrinya women: to punish those fleeing their country in the former case, and as an act of extermination in the latter. The body of women became a battlefield on which there are no sides.