Toxic Waters, Toxic Wombs: Black Feminist Eco-Ethics and Reproductive Justice on Colombia’s Atrato River

• In Event: Women's Environmental activism

Description for Program

On the Pacific Coast of Colombia, the Atrato River, which the Colombian Constitutional Court recognized as a subject of rights in 2016, crosses nearly the entire department of Chocó and serves as the border between Chocó and the neighboring region of Antioquia. The river is a critical part of the territory and its predominately Black community members’ quotidian lives. For various reasons, the Atrato River is their lifeline: their sole means of traveling through the department, their only source of drinkable water, the site of communal and daily activities like bathing and washing clothes, as well as the supplier of their staple food—fish.

However, the Atrato River is under severe threat from illegal mining, which has caused widespread environmental devastation. The process of illegal mining burns and dumps toxic metals like mercury into the river. This pollution has devastating effects on the local community, as inhabitants ingest mercury through direct contact with water and the consumption of fish.

This paper explores the ways toxic environments uniquely impact Black women, who are already situated at the intersections of racial, gendered, class-based, and environmental oppressions. Mercury contamination has far-reaching implications for maternal and infant health. The toxic metal has been detected in breast milk, turning what should be the most nutritious food a mother can provide for her child into a source of harmful contamination. Additionally, pregnant women exposed to mercury face severe risks as exposure increases the likelihood of birth defects, delayed mental development, and even fetal mortality.

Through the lens of Black Feminist Eco-Ethics, Reproductive Justice, and Ecological Justice, this paper examines the compounded injustices that Black women face in the Atrato River basin. This paper underscores how Black women are important actors in understanding the overlapping forms of subjugation that occur through race, gender, class, and environment.

Author

• Kache Claytor, University of Virginia