Irenes story: “Because I feel empowered, I have no more fear.”

November 17, 2023

Irene stands tall and proud in front of her home in Te-Okutu village in Amuru district, Gulu, northern Uganda.

The 42-year-old mother-of-nine points across to a field – “her” field, she is keen to emphasise – abundant with maize and vegetables.

The crop is going to be good this year.

It is rainy season, but after a heavy downpour earlier the sun is beating down. Two of Irene’s shy young grandchildren clutch at her legs, and mischievously try to hide under her traditional dress. Chickens are busy pecking at seeds on the dry ground, and a herd of noisy goats wander around.

“My life is much better now,” soft-spoken Irene says, looking across at her land. “Because I feel empowered, I have no more fear”.

Irene’s story

Then Irene casts her eyes down, and her voice lowers. She is about to recount her very personal story, one of horrific abuse.

“It is important I tell my story,” she says with a whisper. “I want other women to know that there is help for them too.”

In 2006 Irene lost her husband at the end of the war which devastated northern Uganda, resulting in death, hundreds of thousands of internal displacements and the systematic abuse of women and children.

She moved with her five children from a camp in Pabbo County in Amuru District, and ended up in Te-Okutu village, where she claimed land.

She started a relationship with another man who moved into Irene’s house and they jointly farmed the land. In the early years, things were ok, and they had four children together.

But then the abuse started.

“He started to complain that he had to take care of my late husband’s children, and he wanted them to go back to our original home, where we lived during the war” she said.

But Irene refused. “I gave birth to these children, and it was my responsibility to take care of them.”

As things deteriorated her partner started to reject even his own children. He insisted that any food from the land should only be for him and not shared with Irenes late husband’s children, or his own.

Said Irene: “He separated the food. He would buy meat and ask me to cook it and he would eat it alone. Every time I tried giving the same food to the children, he would throw it on the ground and step on it.”

The situation got worse over the following months and one day her partner gathered all the clothes and household utensils in the hut and set it ablaze. Everything she owned was destroyed.

She went to the local leaders, who told her as this was a criminal offence she had to go to the police. But the police demanded money before they would pursue a case. Irene had no money, everything was gone.

Irene, Gender Based Violence survivor - ActionAid

Nowhere to go

When Irene returned to the village her partner chased Irene and the children away, and they sought refuge with neighbours.

To earn enough to feed the children Irene worked tending her neighbours gardens in the following weeks. They had nothing, not even a change of clothes.

When Irene returned her partner attacked her again.

“Because of the beatings and the trauma, I couldn’t sleep at night. I reached the point where I stopped eating.”

ActionAid’s shelter

Finally, a local woman told Irene about ActionAid. With her youngest child she walked several kilometres to the ActionAid office to get help.

“When I reached there, I was so dirty with torn clothes. The baby was naked as everything was burnt in the house and there was nothing to cover him with. But the welcome they gave to me was great…they gave me food and clothes and I started feeling love.”

Irene and her baby stayed at the ActionAid shelter in Amuru for a week where she got counselling and advice from ActionAid’s legal advisor. “I did not feel the inner pain I used to feel. I was welcomed there.”

With support from ActionAid Irene also went to hospital for treatment for her wounds.

And ActionAid provided legal support to get her partner to court to answer for his crimes.

When Irene returned to her village, her children were so happy to see her. “I saw the joy on everyone’s face.”

Slowly Irene started to get better. “I started doing everything again. Eating and dressing myself and minding my children.”

Thanks to support from ActionAid, eventually Irene’s husband was arrested and charged.

A new life for Irene

Knowing she has support from ActionAid she feels empowered.

“I am confident and empowered – even after what happened I have peace of mind and I am with my children.”

Said Irene: “ActionAid has given me peace of mind. I sleep without fear, I do my own stuff without any man having an influence. I am in charge.”

Learn more about how you can donate to a shelter.

ActionAid Uganda: Gender-based violence (GBV) facts:

ActionAid has ten GBV shelters in Uganda

ActionAid supported 36,481 GBV cases in the ten years from 2012 to 2022

16,057 cases were resolved through dispute resolution

1,319 cases were referred to courts

Victims of GBV are given shelter, legal aid, counselling and first aid and medical support.

ActionAid raises awareness about GBV, teenage pregnancies, women land rights and child marriage in the areas in which it works

ActionAid trains and male champions and cultural and religious leaders about women and girls’ rights

Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki.

Belfast Climate Change March, 2019. Photo: Trócaire.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.