IMAGINE YOU WERE brutally and violently evicted from the land your family had lived on for generations. Imagine that your government sanctioned this happening. Imagine then knowing that this happened so that Europeans could drive more supposedly ‘fuel efficient’ cars.

Between 2000 and 2010, a total of 203 million hectares of land deals were under consideration or negotiation worldwide. This land area is equivalent to over 23 times the size of the island of Ireland, with many more deals going unreported. Given how many of these deals were bogus, the scale of this theft is obscene.

In countries as diverse as Angola, Colombia and Sierra Leone, this is the reality for countless men, women and children. Their homes, jobs and livelihoods are taken from them – often violently and with the collusion of the military or paramilitary groups. This deeply disturbing rush for land across the globe is mostly being driven by the demands of wealthy Western nations. More specifically, by our increasing demand for food, fuel and other commodities.

In other cases it is politically driven. In the West Bank illegal Israeli settlements take up Palestinian land and water resources. Farmers are separated from their land and their movements are restricted. Access to education, healthcare and employment are impeded, as is the economy –  all of which contribute to poverty.

Governments have failed to act

At great personal risk, civil society movements around the world are resisting. Human rights defenders are refusing to let violence and pillage win the day. They work in solidarity with communities and help rebuild lives devastated by this denial of human rights.

One Christian Aid partner helped 123 families in Las Pavas, Colombia, who had been forced off their land at gunpoint two years ago to win the legal right to return to the land, in what was a major victory for the families.

In Angola, as a result of eight years of campaigning by another group, SOS Habitat, the government has finally built new homes in one area for a community who were evicted.

Claims by governments that investment in the economy and infrastructure of developing countries will benefit citizens have not materialised. The human rights of the poor count for very little. Hunger problems are often exacerbated as food produced is exported back to wealthy countries. Traditional land ownership based on customs and practices of past generations is ignored in this buy up of the developing world. Women in particular face devastating consequences.

Governments have failed to effectively control what has happened, and voluntary codes of conduct for states are an insufficient political response. The Irish government and the European Parliament must end the use of food to fuel tanks. The impact of this European Union biofuel policy has had a disastrous impact on the enjoyment of the right to food in a number of developing countries.

As the G8 summit approaches in mid-June world leaders will turn some renewed attention to global poverty. In New York later this year new development goals to replace the Millennium Development Goals will also be set. There is an opportunity to challenge the injustice of land grabs.

Karol Balfe works on governance, peace building and human rights for Christian Aid Ireland. Christian Aid Ireland and the Centre of Peace and Development, University of Limerick have brought activists and academics from some of the countries most affected by land grabbing to participate in a two day seminar.