Human rights
Human rights are not just an abstract principle. They should also be part of everyday commercial and industrial practice. That's why for Anglo American, the safeguarding of human rights is increasingly becoming a condition for doing business. Backing this up are binding and enforceable contractual obligations.
Anglo Coal Australia s employees participated in an event to raise awareness and fight racism Copyright: Tony Phillips
For example, in negotiating agreements with private security companies in Namibia, Venezuela and Chile, we insist that staff be fully trained in the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. Now more than two thirds of our security providers have received this training. Training for the rest is under way. On top of that, in South Africa, we funded the development of a policing and human rights course for the national police service.
Human rights approaches also underpin the HIV/AIDS work, and SEAT helps operations to identify human rights issues. Complaints and grievance procedures have been highlighted as a key issue by Professor John Ruggie, and we have a new tool on this in SEAT to provide guidance in this area.
Training and debate
The Red Cross project builds on Cerrejon's own human rights programme. For some time this has provided training for employees, community leaders and public and private security forces deployed to protect the facilities. Cerrejon has also established a Social Labour Responsibility Policy. It's designed to meet Social Accountability International's SA 8000 standard for managing labour practices for employees, suppliers and contractors.
More widely, Anglo American continues to play an important role in the global debate on protecting human rights. To that end, we have supported the work of Professor John Ruggie, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative on Business and Human Rights. In particular, we've backed his efforts to spread good practice and obtain more whole-hearted support from governments for voluntary human rights initiatives. Through the International Council on Mining and Metals, we have also urged the convening of new multi-stakeholder processes on indigenous peoples rights and artisanal mining.
