Nadia BernazThe Corporate Human Rights Benchmark 2022 is out! #CHRB2022 #bizhumanrights
Check it out
PhD Researcher, @TilburgU #humanrights
#bizhumanrights #access2remedy
Ben Grama
- 2 Followers
- 29 Following
- 16 Posts
The 'Company-Level Grievance Mechanisms Guy'
PhD Researcher, @TilburgU #humanrights
#bizhumanrights #access2remedy
PhD Researcher, @TilburgU #humanrights
#bizhumanrights #access2remedy
Meanwhile, most of the communities that are the most aggrieved have no idea this OGM exists. Community members in areas like Sunset/ Milimani often have no trust in Kakuzi and no trust in the mechanism.
Note: I may post this on Twitter in the end, but I thought I would share it here first. I would be interested in everyone's thoughts.
The overall community response in Kangangu is that the company called them liars in 2014 and uses the OGM to do so again now. Many of them believe that Kakuzi is using this OGM purely to 'sanitise' its image internationally.
It is maybe too early to tell (weaker claims can be dismissed faster), but the legacy of pain there is strong and the remedy many people want is their road.
That only some community members were compensated in the settlement agreement has created deep divisions.
And this is the good independent Kakuzi OGM (!) with safeguards, with transparency, monitoring, with a commitment to remedy (mentioned all over the report), and a legal obligation to have the OGM set out in a settlement agreement. Kakuzi's other OGM is responsible for all kinds of alleged practices including fostering systems of retaliation and being used to justify assaults on the union. It has published no reports on its handling of grievances since 2021... and is unlikely to do so.
Outcomes? The settlement was in 2021, the first part of the OGM started in 2021, and the independent mechanism started in early 2022. The burden of proof is set at the 'balance of probabilities' in Kenyan law. So far, of 1421 complaints at the independent mechanism, there are 1294 pending, 127 dismissed (either dismissed or the grievant refused to collect the decision), and 0 accepted by the company, 0 remedies proposed, and 0 remedies accepted. Some remedies are apparently in the works.
This is borne out by the Kakuzi report which states virtually all complaints are from Kangangu (Magoto is the company's name for Kangangu), and relate to a 2014 demonstration over an access road (which has not been (re)opened by Kakuzi and will not be provided by the OGM). This is despite violent collective responses also being documented at other communities such as Kitito primary school and Gathanguru, and numerous communities have complaints of assaults and rapes by security over the years.
The communities consulted were often from neighbouring communities and not from communities that are on Kakuzi land ("squatters") who face the most severe challenges (with the exception of Sunset below). Kimorori, Huho-ini and Saba Saba are miles away. This has meant that many of the communities that need remedy the most that I spoke with had no idea about the grievance mechanism (except for in Sunset and neighbouring community Kangangu).
Kakuzi is a Kenyan agribusiness company that sits on the site of numerous historical land injustices. Land issues are outside the scope of Kakuzi's OGMs on paper, but in reality they are dealing with land issues through the OGM (and have left a paper trail). The overall approach is to dismiss grievances, often due to lacking appropriate documentation. OGM decisions are in written English which most grievants cannot read/speak, and they leave the process not understanding why they were dismissed.
Last month Kakuzi published the first report on it's operational-level grievance mechanism, which was set up as part of an out-of-court settlement agreement following transnational litigation in the UK: https://tinyurl.com/54xs4488
Kakuzi's OGM is interesting because it is expressly set up to provide reparations for harm, unlike most OGMs, and is committed to a high degree of transparency and third party monitoring.
The report confirms many conclusions I drew from my field research (Aug-Oct).