Human Rights
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We recognise and stand by our responsibility to ensure the upholding
of basic human rights principles wherever we operate, through:
- Undertaking to adhere to international charters and declarations on the protection of human rights. In all our operations, we will recognise and adhere to the spirit of accepted principles and standards relating to the protection of basic human rights, as laid down in relevant international charters and declarations
- Undertaking to comply with national legislation and to set an example with regard to human rights. We will comply with all national legislation and regulations regarding application of relevant international charters and declarations, wherever we conduct business
- Undertaking to ensure that none of our businesses or employees will knowingly violate any human rights principle. We undertake to apply whatever internal policies, procedures and controls are necessary to ensure that we do not knowingly violate the principles relating to the protection of basic human rights, whether in managing our relationships internally or in our external dealings and relationships with third parties
- Undertaking to report any known violation or breach of human rights legislation to the responsible authorities. We will report to the relevant authorities (and require our people to do likewise) any identified violation or breach of human rights legislation
- Undertaking to respect differences between and to encourage tolerance towards individuals, social or other groups and cultures. We undertake to ensure that our business and working practices are respectful of, and encourage tolerance towards, differences between individuals or groups within the societies and environments in which we operate, and to respect the culture of those societies and environments
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Our benchmarks for reporting include:
- Human rights breaches reported by regulatory, legal or other authorities
- Human rights breaches reported by staff
No breaches of our Human Rights policies were reported during the year.
Our plans for next yearWe will be further embedding our Human Rights policy, with the help of the deeper understanding of our people’s diversity emerging from our Global Employee survey. We will continue to roll out our personal safety workshops globally while promoting the Suzy Lamplugh Trust amongst NGOs and the business community.
We also intend to increase the number of external help lines and centres for the provision of confidential and impartial advice to our people