Phyllis Omido is good-humoured when I meet her for an interview. It is impossible to tell by looking at her what she has been through. How often she was arrested. How often she was persecuted. How often she received death threats. How she came across ignorance and corruption within the government and the authorities. How frequently her son only just managed to escape kidnappers. The number of attempts to silence her with violence, but also with money. She does not let on just how careful she has to be even now. After all, around 200 activists like her are murdered across the world every year.
It began with the life-threatening lead poisoning of the inhabitants of Owino Uhuru, a village in Kenya where a recycling plant for car batteries had been established. However, it is not just about the lead smelting plants in Omido’s homeland, it is also about eliminating the cause of the flow of refugees. “If Europeans want to do something about the flow of refugees from Africa, they should stop inducing the problems there”.
Part of being careful means first publishing her book “With a Mother’s Anger” in German. It still seems unthinkable in Africa. “Maybe next year. If we publish it in English, we have to be psychologically prepared for the backlash from Kenya”, she explains in the interview.
“The African Erin Brockovich”
There is another reason why the book is appearing in Germany first. “One reason is that Germany has a very large automobile industry. Hardly any cars here leave the assembly line without a lead battery. The book deals with car batteries which are recycled in Africa. It is therefore not merely a Kenyan issue, but a German and a global one.” She wrote the following dedication in my copy of her book which has just appeared in the Europa Verlag: “Dear Ewald, always 'speak up' for nature for all. Thank you.”
She is searching for allies in Germany. “If we can get the German public to hold the automobile manufacturers accountable for the fact that their end products kill people in Africa and if the German public become even more aware of this problem, then we will be able to fight the issue together. This would be a big win”.
Phyllis Omido never wanted to become an activist. Yet she has become a tremendously important one. “In the first few years, I didn’t want to accept being called an activist at all. But when I was arrested for the first time simply for saying that something is wrong and my entire community was waiting for me in front of the court house, I realised that I am an activist after all”.
It was her anger as a mother whose son was the victim of high level lead poisoning, which turned her into Africa’s leading environmental activist. She is often called “the African Erin Brockovich”, a reference to the film about the American environmental activist who successfully fights a US energy company responsible for polluting the drinking water.
The majority of the disease-causing lead which is disposed of in Africa without consideration for the environment or the people originates from used batteries from Europe.
In Africa alone, 800,000 tonnes of lead is recycled without observing environmental regulations. A dozen of the metal refineries, the lethal lead smelters, have now been forced to close. They cost numerous human lives and the groundwater will be contaminated for a long time yet.
Phyllis Omido even managed to get the attention and support of the United Nations. Her fight has paid off. But it has not yet been won.
About the Author:
Ewald König is editor-in-chief at korrespondenten.tv, a project of the Berlin correspondent office.