Human Rights Impact Assessment in India
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Assessing HumAn RigHts impActs india project Report February 2014 content 1. Introduction ······················································4 1.1 Background to Kuoni’s commitment to corporate responsibility ···································4 1.2 Background to this report ····································5 1.3 Objectives of the project ·····································5 1.4 Project leadership, partners and oversight ····················································6 2. The impact assessment process ·························· 10 2.1 Process phases and outputs ······························· 10 2.2 Process design and the UN guiding principles ······· 11 2.3 Assessment methodology ································· 11 2.3.1 The Kuoni HRIA toolkit ···························· 11 2.3.2 Background research ······························· 11 2.3.3 Defining the scope ·································· 12 2.3.4 Identifying stakeholders and potentially affected groups ······································· 12 2.3.5 Semi-structured assessment questionnaires ········································ 14 2.3.6 On-site meetings ····································· 14 2.3.7 Data analysis ··········································· 17 3. Summary of findings and actions defined ············· 18 3.1 Labour issues at Kuoni/Sita ······························· 19 3.2 Labour issues at key accommodation suppliers ····· 20 3.3 Labour issues at key service providers ················· 22 3.4 Women’s rights and empowerment ····················· 23 3.5 Community impacts of the houseboat industry ····· 26 3.6 Economic exclusion/lack of local sourcing ··········· 28 3.7 Impacts on children ········································· 29 4. Lessons learned ··············································· 32 5. Ways forward ·················································· 34 5.1 Action plan for India ········································ 34 5.2 Integrating the findings into management systems ······································· 35 6. Statements by external stakeholders ·················· 36 Appendix 1. Profiles of the Kuoni units involved··························· 40 2. Implementation of UN guiding principle 18················ 42 3. On-site assessment schedule ·································· 43 4. List of stakeholders interviewed ······························ 45 4 www.kuoni.com 1. IntRoduction 1.1 background to kuoni’s commitment to integration – which has included establishing its own corporate responsibility corporate Responsibility unit, adopting stakeholder management, devising and implementing groupwide Kuoni has been striving for over ten years now to cR policies and defining and pursuing key focus issues enhance the positive impact of tourism on people – on the Kuoni group website (www.kuoni.com/corp- and the environment and simultaneously minimize responsibility). its negative ramifications. Kuoni and its staff are on the basis of the overall Kuoni group cR strategy for convinced that the company can make a major 2012-2014, the cR risk assessment and the subsequent contribution to ensuring sustainable tourism definition of the Kuoni materiality matrix (see Figure development with the scope it has available and 1: Kuoni materiality matrix), the focus issues for the resources at its disposal. corporate Responsibility within the Kuoni As many other companies around the world have group are: also found, the process of integrating corporate Responsibility (cR) into Kuoni’s overall business 1. its employees operations has not always been straightforward. 2. sustainable supply chain management 3. sustainable products the whole cR debate has also moved on substantially 4. human and labour rights in recent years. Rather than embarking on isolated 5. natural resources and climate change and individual projects and initiatives, current cR thinking 6. governance and organization. advocates the increasing integration of such activities into the core business of companies. For each of these focus issues, a road map has been Kuoni, it can safely be claimed, has extensively developed and specific goals have been defined. these integrated its corporate Responsibility activities into can also be viewed on the Kuoni group website. its overall business strategy over the last ten years. You will find a comprehensive overview of this strategic Figure 1: Kuoni materiality matrix Active management/ High risk Human Rights h Child protection High Sustainable h Working conditions supply chain management Impact of Climate Change and regulations Natural Resources h Water scarcity Employees h Loss of biodiversity h Occupational Community Health&Safety engagement h Employee Engagement Governance / Social Organisation investments h Anti Corruption h Governance and Cultural transparency Heritage h Ethics / compliance Sustainable Products h Product Innovation h Customer satisfaction h Social Media Low High Sustainability topics of concern to stakeholders Sustainability topics of relevance to Kuoni Kuoni’s degree of influence assessing human rights impacts · india project report 5 1.2 background to this report (HRiA) in Kenya the same year. this was the first comprehensive and stand-alone assessment of the in June 2011, the UN guiding principles for Business human rights risks and impacts arising from Kuoni’s and Human Rights (1) were unanimously endorsed operations and business relationships at one particular by the UN Human Rights council. these principles destination, and the first- ever published human rights provide the global benchmark for governments impact assessment to be published in the tourism and business to address the human rights impacts industry. the findings of this assessment and the of economic activity, and promote transparency, follow-up measures defined were also summarized in accountability and access to remedy. the principles a report which was published on Kuoni’s website in outline the central elements of the corporate november 2012 (Quicksearch 14402)* . Responsibility to respect human rights, and the due diligence activities which companies need to undertake the pilot project in Kenya paved the way for a second in order to fulfil it. (see Figure 2: elements of the human rights impact assessment which was conducted corporate responsibility to respect human rights) by Kuoni in india in october 2013. the choice of india, where Kuoni operates through its fully-owned company Kuoni destination management (KDM) india, was based on Kuoni’s global human rights risk assessment, which assesses all destinations by the criteria of: Policy h the country’s human rights risk level according commitment to publicly-available human rights indices (3) h Kuoni customer volume h Kuoni’s leverage at the destination (own ground agents vs. external partners). Assess actual Remediate and potential adverse impacts impacts From the high-risk countries identified, india Corporate was chosen for this project mainly because of its Responsibility comparatively high customer volume and because KDM to respect human rights india already has an established local cR function. it was therefore considered appropriate to take india as the location in which to conduct a second HRiA and refine the pilot assessment methodology. the same Track and Integrate reporting format was used as for the HRiA in Kenya, communicate findings and with some text passages taken from the Kenya report performance take appropriate and adapted to the indian context. action 1.3 objectives of the project Figure 2: Elements of the corporate responsibility the objectives of the project were threefold: to respect human rights (2) h To provide Kuoni with a more precise understanding of the human rights context of its operations and Kuoni has committed itself to respecting human rights business relationships in india, and of the actual or in its statement of commitment on Human Rights1 potential human rights impacts (positive and (Quicksearch 14401)*, which was developed through negative) that these may cause, contribute to or be consultations with internal and external stakeholders. linked to, as well as of the existing measures being the statement has been endorsed by the Kuoni group taken to address them; and to identify executive Board and was published in march 2012. As possible mitigating measures, means of enhancing a next step towards fulfilling this commitment, Kuoni access to remedy and opportunities to strengthen the conducted a pilot human rights impact assessment positive impacts on human rights in india. (1) http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/ (3) Corruption Perceptions Index 2012 (Transparency International); Human GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf Development Index 2012 (United Nations Development Programme); (2) twentyfifty, based on the UN Guiding Principles for Human & Labour Rights indices (maplecroft) Business and Human Rights. * Enter the code in the search box at www.kuoni.com and you will be taken directly to the relevant content. 6 www.kuoni.com h To trial the newly-developed Kuoni HRiA toolkit for sita’s specific role in the project was to: assessing human rights impacts in india in order to h lead the process within india and manage the make the necessary modifications to the method to logistics of the on-site assessment be applied by other destination management h select and reach out to business and NGO partners in specialists within the framework of Kuoni’s human India to be involved in the project rights due diligence process. h provide information during