By Witness Radio Team
Several advocates including Witness Radio – Uganda from 59 countries all over the world are meeting in Accra, Ghana to assess the business and human rights policies to foster development in the region.
The two-day African Business and Human Rights Forum which started on the 12th and ends 13th of October 2022 brought together actors from across Africa to examine and discuss the challenges and or opportunities associated with promoting responsible business and human rights conduct and corporate accountability in the region.
The forum is hosted by the government of Ghana and is organized by the African Union (AU), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights among others.
This forum comes at a time when gross human rights violations by companies or individuals operating businesses are at their peak worldwide.
Uganda’s evictions and environmental watchdog, Witness Radio has documented several stories exposing companies that continue to receive huge funds despite their continued violations of human rights to the native communities where they set their businesses. The latest is the UK-based New Forests Company operating tree plantations in Luwunga and Namwasa in Kiboga and Mubende districts.
The company was directly involved in the violent eviction of over 10,000 residents between 2006 and 2010 from the land they had lived on for decades for its profit-making businesses, currently, some families live in internally displaced camps, others with their relatives whereas some acting as laborers at plantations of rich men to earn what to feed their family.
On May 4th, 2019, a group of people raided Amujeju village in Amujeju Parish in Kamtur Sub County and allegedly beat up residents, raped women, destroyed their crops and houses, and evicted them from their homes. It is believed that over one thousand residents were evicted on what they said was their ancestral land measuring to over 2000 acres.
According to an October, 29th, 2020 article by a popular local online publication, Uganda Radio Network URN, a letter from Uganda Investment Authority-UIA dated January 24th, 2020 was introducing Hainan Qinfu Food Company Limited, a Chinese company dealing in a fishing enterprise that specializes in tilapia aquaculture, production of fish feed, fish processing and marketing seeking to invest USD 450 million, approximately 1.6 Trillion Shillings to establish an aquaculture park on the community land in Bukedea district.
Among the activities to be discussed by the actors include offering a dynamic regional multi-stakeholder platform for dialogue on business and human rights, laying the groundwork for future peer-learning sessions and collaborative initiatives and programmes on business and human rights in Africa, assessing progress made on implementing the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and promote collaboration and networking between and among governments, businesses, civil society, National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), human rights defenders and other stakeholders and discussing the national and regional efforts to implement the UNGPs, including through National Action Plans (NAPs), human rights due diligence (HRDD) laws and practices, and ensuring access to effective remedies among others.
However, despite passing the National Action Plan on Business and Human rights in Uganda in 2021, such abuses remain escalating. In late 2021 sixteen members of the Paten Clan, a community in Pakwach District in Northern Uganda were shot at and wounded by local police and army officers for opposing the 91.7 Million Wadelai irrigation project implementation funded by the African development bank (AfDB) and Nordic Development Fund. Some community members including pregnant women were beaten while others were subjected to illegal detentions.
“The Forum is envisioned as an annual event aiming to devise a coherent continental platform for discussing how to promote and ensure responsible business conduct in Africa. It will provide an invaluable opportunity for stakeholders, including AU member states, businesses, and civil society, to learn about progress and challenges, to share best practices, to identify needs, and engage in peer learning through constructive dialogue.” said the OHCHR on their website.
The Executive Director of Witness Radio Uganda Jeff Wokulira Ssebaggala, who represented the team at the forum, said in the next 10 years, over 35 countries are targeted to have passed the NAP on human rights and business on the continent. Currently, in Africa, Kenya and Uganda are the only countries with the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights passed in 2019 and 2021 respectively.
