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Business News/ Opinion / Online-views/  Root Cause | When HR stands for human rights
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Root Cause | When HR stands for human rights

There is a disturbing trend of businesses in most sectors 'shirking their corporate social responsibilities', says CSR Asia

Some businesses, the CSR Asia report maintains, shy away from engaging with human rights issues because they feel “engaging with issues and putting in place a human rights strategy will attract the attention of NGOs who will then attack them.” Photo: ReutersPremium
Some businesses, the CSR Asia report maintains, shy away from engaging with human rights issues because they feel “engaging with issues and putting in place a human rights strategy will attract the attention of NGOs who will then attack them.” Photo: Reuters

Denial. Disengagement. Distress. Despair. These traits would emerge if one were to invite businesses to the friendly neighbourhood psychoanalyst for an examination on attitudes towards human rights. At least that’s what CSR Asia thinks; and I am in vigorous agreement on account of its mirroring particularly in India and South Asia.

Richard Welford, chairman of the Hong Kong- and Singapore-based strategy, research and reporting specialists in corporate social responsibility, with offices in several Asian capitals, published a set of revealing findings earlier in July in the organization’s in-house publication, CSR Asia Weekly. These are derived from what Welford describes as interviews with businesses “about human rights, human trafficking and modern day slavery".

It forms part of an ongoing project with Oxfam, designed to get businesses more aware of human rights “challenges" in supply chains, including those of well-known brand names. While the study is skewed towards modern day slavery it makes observations that cut across the business and human rights universe.

Though a few companies were beginning to engage with human rights issues, CSR Asia says it generally finds a disturbing trend of businesses in most sectors “shirking their corporate social responsibilities". They do so in several ways.

At the top of the list is “denying that there is a problem". Welford writes how even with clear and increasing evidence of “modern day slavery" in supply chains, several businesses refuse to acknowledge anything could be wrong with their supply chains. They even blame over-eager media persons looking for “sensational stories". This attitude is extended by what is essentially a futile head-in-the-sand approach, Welford maintains. If you don’t acknowledge a problem it will simply go away; or, to look at it in another way, if you do engage there must be a problem—and so, “the strategy seems to be to not engage and ignore the problem".

Then there are respondents who argue that their ongoing initiatives “have the problem covered", based on clearly stated codes of conduct and occasional audits. “Nothing could be further from the truth," writes Welford. “Most audits are of first tier suppliers where there is actually a lower risk of human rights abuses, whereas the real problem is all the way down the supply chain in primary industries including agriculture, extractives, fishing and forestry."

Some businesses, mentions the CSR Asia report, say they feel either they are too small or the human rights problem too big. Either way they claim they don’t have the wherewithal, limited time and budgets inclusive, to deal with human rights issues even if they are aware of them and want to do something about them. This is borderline disingenuous, not unlike the topic of a seminar I attended at a top Kolkata college a couple of years ago: “Can India afford CSR?"

A close cousin of head-in-the-sand arrives next, a phenomenon that an iconic British satirist famously described as “SEP field"—it’s somebody else’s problem. This shifting of responsibility involves claiming that those further down a supply chain may be too far for a business to manage effective oversight. Indeed, it is beyond the scope of their responsibility, such businesses insist. It is the preserve of government, as it involves regulation and implementation.

That is certainly part of the solution, CSR Asia admits, but “the private sector cannot absolve itself from the responsibilities it has". As this ranges from ensuring products are “slave free" to matters of land rights and “land grabs", given the reality of “poor governance…in the region, not much is likely to happen fast if this is the approach taken."

Some businesses, the CSR Asia report maintains, shy away from engaging with human rights issues because they feel “engaging with issues and putting in place a human rights strategy will attract the attention of NGOs who will then attack them."

Here Welford makes two points that I entirely agree with, and I have repeatedly stressed these in this column. “Yet such businesses need to realize that NGOs are now increasingly sophisticated and want to actively work with the private sector to address issues," Welford writes. “Indeed, it is those companies that are not willing to address issues in their supply chain that will incur the wrath of NGOs. Those companies who fail to address human rights issues are going to be the ones who run the risk of being named and shamed in the international media."

The short point: Acknowledge and engage. Disengage and be damned.

Sudeep Chakravarti’s latest book is Clear-Hold-Build: Hard Lessons of Business and Human Rights in India. His previous books include Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country and Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land. This column, which focuses on conflict situations in South Asia that directly affect business, runs on Fridays.

Respond to this column at rootcause@livemint.com

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Published: 24 Jul 2014, 05:00 PM IST
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