Corporate human rights due diligence and assessing risks of sexual violence in large-scale mining operations

ABSTRACT

A growing body of literature associates large-scale mining with specific impacts on and risks for women, including systemic sexual violence. Mining companies themselves have been accused of involvement in rape and sexual assault in their operations. I focus on two international instruments developed to regulate the human rights impacts of business activities, and analyse whether the notion of human rights due diligence upon which they rest constitutes an effective tool to identify and prevent mining-related risks of sexual violence. I contend that both instruments portray sexual violence as an exceptional risk, thus discouraging mining companies from considering it in their due diligence processes. I ultimately argue that a gender approach to human rights due diligence, stronger international guidance and better stakeholder engagement would allow mining companies to develop due diligence strategies that effectively consider the specific experiences of women.

Keywords:

• mining
• due diligence
• sexual violence
• women
• risk assessment
• human rights
• United Nations Guiding Principles
• OECD

Acknowledgment

I am very grateful for the insightful suggestions from Prof. Beth Goldblatt, Dr Michael Rawling and Dr Gabrielle Simm on an earlier version of this article. I would also like to thank the two anonymous referees for their detailed and constructive comments. All remaining errors are my own.

Notes

1. Despite its emphasis on sexual violence, this article does not suggest that women working and living in mining communities or survivors of sexual violence should only be portrayed as victims. In fact, research demonstrates that women are beneficiaries as well as critical productive agents of the mining industry (see e.g. Lahiri-Dutt 2012). It does not intend either to homogenise women and their experiences.

2. The UNGPs and the OECD Guidance are not the only two international instruments addressing human rights due diligence or human rights risk assessment. They are not, either, the only standards applicable to the mining industry. In fact, many mining companies have established company-specific standards or have incorporated industry or multistakeholder norms and practices. These include, for example, the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance’s Standard for Responsible Mining or the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights.

3. In the case of the North Mara mine, the company directly involved was African Barrick Gold, Barrick Gold’s subsidiary, which managed the mine.

4. Exception must be made for the Regulation (EU) 2017/821 that creates binding obligations for European Union importers of 3Ts and Gold.

5. I analysed the human rights policies, codes of conduct, human rights reports and ‘human rights’ web pages of 20 multinational mining companies. The companies chosen included 19 of the biggest mining companies in 2018 according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy firm that has for some years conducted an annual review of global trends in the mining industry, as represented by the top 40 mining companies by market capitalisation (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2018). One of the companies chosen was accused of sexual violence in its activities (Barrick Gold Corporation) and another is associated with projects and now-extinct companies against which allegations of sexual violence have been made (Zijin Mining Group Co. Limited). A company was added to that list for facing similar accusations (Hudbay Minerals). The objective of this review was to identify whether these multinational companies identified sexual violence as a risk of their activities and made reference to sexual violence in relation to their due diligence processes, either as a salient or non-salient human rights abuse.

6. In 2018, the OECD released the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct that provides insight on what it means for a company—including a mining company—to apply a gender perspective to due diligence (OECD 2018).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anaïs Tobalagba

Anaïs Tobalagba is a Doctoral Researcher and Teaching Fellow at the Faculty of Law of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Her research focuses on corporation’s human rights responsibilities and their potential to prevent violence against women in business operations. Before commencing her graduate studies at UTS, Anaïs managed projects on national implementation of international humanitarian law, certification of conflict minerals, and access to justice for women survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.