Girls Advocacy Program: Lobby (Private Sector)

Problem description/background: Violence against girls and young women and the denial of their economic rights stand in the way of achieving meaningful gender equality. Serious violations of these human rights are affecting millions of girls and young women. Many companies that are based in The Netherlands are (directly or indirectly) working in developing countries. Either because they have suppliers in the South, or because they have branches or part of their productions/operations located in the South, or because they are selling their products/services (direct or through agents or retailers) in the South. Those (Dutch) companies are often aware of the existing legal frameworks that protect the rights of workers and basic human rights principles. Most (Dutch) companies are making an effort to integrate these into their business principles. However, at the same time it appears that companies are also struggling to understand the their (positive and negative) impact on communities in the South and how they could make a valuable contribution where they are working, especially in creating economic opportunities for girls and young women, next to running a profitable business. The 2014 KPMG corporate social responsibility risk analysis showed that in most of the 13 researched sectors there are many risks regarding violation of women’s rights, in particular concerning equal pay, working conditions and sexual harassment. Often there is a lack of awareness how mechanisms of women’s rights violations work or can be mitigated. It may very well be that the companies themselves are fully compliant with the legal and regulatory frameworks in the countries where they are working, but nonetheless, through their work or by lack of mitigation they are creating or contributing to social problems.