GAIA: Addressing gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in agricultural supply chains

Context 

Gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) is a persistent issue within commercial agricultural supply chains still it remains underreported and under addressed. Women constitute roughly half of the world’s agricultural workforce yet they typically occupy labour intensive and lower-skilled roles, seldom on permanent contracts.  The nature and terms of women’s work along with the physical isolation of farms and estates, exacerbates their vulnerability to GBVH. The resultant power dynamics coupled with pervasive patriarchal norms heighten the risks of GBVH. Ineffective mechanisms to report and appropriately act upon concerns or grievances, exacerbated by a lack of women’s representation in leadership roles, and presence of perpetrators in those roles, cause GBVH issues to persist. 

Conducting human rights due diligence, ETI members have sought to identify, prevent, mitigate these risks and account for GBVH in their supply chains. ETI has supported members to respond to GBVH incidences, the investigation at James Finlay Kenya being one example of our initiatives as part of the platform ETI offers for tripartite collaborative action. However, this case and others before it strongly point to the fact that current approaches are failing to effectively prevent GBVH.  

Having reflected on the factors that make workers vulnerable and empower and embolden perpetrators in tea (and flowers) to be common across many workplaces in commercial agriculture and fishery supply chains, ETI and its members have come to the conclusion that a system wide approach is needed. 

Initiative overview 

Based on initial consultations, with tripartite members and non-members operating in commercial agriculture supply chains, on the need for greater consistency and coordination of approaches, we are developing a set of principles to address GBVH risks that is based on meaningful stakeholder engagement. 

These principles will be based on gender responsive human rights due diligence (GRHRDD) and will be developed through a series of engagement whereby companies (retailers, suppliers, producers), workers and their representatives, civil society, and thematic experts come to a shared understanding of what factors increase the risk of GBVH in supply chains and how they can be addressed. Furthermore, understanding of the respective roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder group is critical to ensuring survivors are supported, and GBVH is reduced and eliminated from the workplace. Once developed and agreed on, these principles will subsequently be tested in selected supply chains, in the next phase of the initiative.   

We have selected two supply chains relevant to our members to focus discussions - Kenyan commercial agriculture (tea and flowers) and South African citrus - keeping in mind the applicability of the principles to global food, farming and even fishery supply chains. We are not looking to spotlight any particular region, country, or commodity as the risk for GBVH is widespread. 

The initiative will run two rounds of engagement in Kenya, South Africa and online. The first round of engagement will input into the principles that will guide and coordinate action by stakeholders to prevent and address GBVH risks. The second round will present a draft and discuss feedback on principles, which will then be finalised by ETI in consultation with our advisory group. 

We are carefully working with partners and participating sites to engage with workers.  We seek to reinforce existing effective structures that support workers and survivors; the initiative will not replicate reporting mechanisms as part of our engagement with workers who are asked to contribute their views on what currently does and not work in the prevention and response to GBVH. ETI will uphold safeguarding principles and not report any cases/issues publicly that would reveal the workers’ identity or site, grower, or company. 

GAIA project timeline

Outputs 

This will include:  

• Principles of addressing GBVH in commercial agricultural supply chains 
• An analysis of challenges in addressing GBVH 
• Good practice case studies 

The basis of the principles is to draw from challenges and good practice to guide stakeholders on their roles and responsibilities that fall under ILO conventions and GRHRDD practices, rather than creating new obligations or requirements. ETI believes in the spirit of improvement and collaboration rather than compliance. The principles will highlight generalised learnings on risks, issues, and solutions that may be applicable to commercial agricultural supply chains globally. 

This first phase of the project is funded by nine ETI companies. The broader ETI community of suppliers, trade unions and NGOs are participating in our working group or sharing their feedback on the draft principles in our advisory group. 

For more information contact Heidi Chan, Gender Programme Lead, ETI.