Business & Human Rights Resource Centre的动态

Transcript

Businesses have the responsibility to respect human rights, and the only way to do that is if they also respect those who stand up to protect human rights. It's essential for every human to be able to stand up for what we believe in, to stand up for our families, for our lands, for our environment. And when we see those threatened, it is natural to stand up and protect. And that's all that defenders are doing. The risks faced by human rights defenders, campaigners, lawyers, community leaders, indigenous peoples, they range from all the way from threats to beatings, violence, being taken to court on Baseless. Charges and all the way to murder, and that happens globally and is related to all business sectors. We have collected over 5800 attacks against human rights defenders, raising serious concerns about irresponsible business. And we know that's just the tip of the iceberg. So the response to all this is not adequate. Out of the hundreds of companies whose policies we studied, only 46 had 0 tolerance policies on attacks against defenders in place, and only nine of those were adequate. We have seen some momentum from governments in terms of policy and laws. However, it's not enough. The violence is continuing, and that's why with partners. Allies, we want to put even more energy and emphasis into this area. There's solidarity, trust and strength in networks. And that's why in this work we primarily work through coalitions. That means we're in direct touch with human rights defenders, protection organizations, civil society from around the world, and jointly we develop and escalate messages to companies, investors, governments and UN. And that's how we address. Root causes of attacks on defenders and protect defenders. We are now seeing more and more companies finally seeing this as a real risk and starting to address it. But we need to see more and now is the time to act. When you engage early and when you engage consistently, you know your risks, you know what is happening. Engagement with human rights defenders, protection of human rights defenders is ultimately good business.