The women of the Niger Delta want you to know there is a human cost for our unquenchable thirst for oil and, to get our attention, they have used a novel form of protest: They threatened to disrobe.

When their sons protested in the past, they were beaten, tortured, and killed. So, in mid-July 2002, thousand of women in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta used the threat of public nudity, a traditional form of shaming in Nigeria, to draw the world's attention to their plight.

"Our nakedness is our weapon," the women said. And a powerful weapon it turned out to be. It brought Chevron's oil operations in the Nigerian port of Escravos to a standstill for more than a week. "Escravos" means slave in Portuguese. It is this port that once sent thousands of slaves abroad. Today, it is oil that is being exported, also leaving misery and sorrow in its wake.

And so the women, ranging in age from 30 to 80 and some with babies strapped to their backs, took over the flow stations. "We are no longer slaves," they said. "Even slaves realize their condition and fight for their freedom."

The ChevronTexaco Corp., one of the biggest oil companies (after Shell) in Nigeria, has pumped oil out of the Delta for decades and destroyed the clean water, clean air and fertile land that the Delta people have depended on for generations, says Environmental Rights Action (ERA), the largest environmental group in Nigeria. The CIA reports that 10 times as much oil as was spilled in the famous Exxon Valdez oil spill has been spilled in the Delta. The Exxon-Valdez spill cost over $10 billion to clean up. The Delta has yet to see any meaningful cleanup effort.

As Chevron and others have extracted oil, they have given little in return, just a school here, a clinic there, and an occasional job or micro-credit scheme. As the oil is sucked from the ground, the earth itself subsides, and the oily waters of the gulf of Guinea seep deeper inland, poisoning the heart of these once fertile swamps.

The women's young children stand with distended bellies, kwashiokor, a protein deficiency, racking their small frames. The few fish their fathers catch taste of crude oil. The children have no schooling, because school costs money, an extravagance when the average income is $1 a day.

The young girls chase after the oil men, hoping for a one-night stand, risking bringing AIDS and other diseases home to their villages if it means surviving another day, the environmental group says.

The oil is decimating their people as surely as slavery did. And it's only getting worse. As Americans drive more gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles and worry about terrorists shutting down our Middle Eastern oil supply, we're pumping more oil out of impoverished countries like Nigeria post-9/11, and inevitably spilling more oil. By 2015, if all goes as planned, Nigeria and other West African countries will deliver one-fourth of America's oil.

President Obasanjo of Nigeria has allegedly decided the most fitting response to the women's protests is to hire women "mobile police"--a.k.a. "kill and go." Not clean up the decades of crude spilled on the impoverished Delta. Not invest in education or health care. Not ensure that a job program is established for those suffering the worst of the Delta's spills. And the World Bank and other public investors like the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the US Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) are right there behind them. The World Bank has invested over $215 million, OPIC has invested $270 million, and Ex-Im has invested $124 million--in all in oil and gas projects in Nigeria since 1992.

Although the women have called off their protests for now, they will certainly be back. Oil is a finite resource. So is the patience of the Nigerian people.