Discrimination, child labour, a substantial part of the workforce with HIV/AIDS and dangerous business sectors like mining and industry. These are business related human rights issues that are common in South Africa. Human rights legislation that companies are confronted with is often ineffective or unclear. Social and cultural developments are also of great influence on the human rights risks within the sphere of influence of the South African business community. These risks need a specific, South African approach. Aim for human rights, together with South African companies, civil society organisations and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, works on a special South African version of the Human Rights Compliance Assessment (HRCA) tool.

Although Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is clearly on the agenda in South Africa, the issue of human rights for business enterprises is still a relatively new and emerging subject. Within the business world, there is limited knowledge and experience on the contents and enforcement of human rights, which lay within the corporate sphere of influence. NGOs and trade unions in the country do have ample knowledge and expertise on human rights and labour rights to provide companies with the necessary feedback. However human rights in relation to business remains a rather new and emerging field.

Through round table meetings, multi stakeholder conferences and training sessions, Aim for human rights focuses on awareness creation and capacity enhancement. The project is based on the HRCA tools and is targeted at NGOs and companies operating in South Africa.

At the start of 2006, Aim for human rights set up a project group of NGOs and sector organisations concerned with human rights and business. Some of the participating organisations are advisers to the project, while other organisations play a more active role within the project. The project partners are: Aim for human rights, Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA), Benchmarks Foundation of Southern Africa for CSR (BeFSA), Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA), Khulumani Support Group and University of Cape Town. The African Institute for Corporate Citizenship (AICC), Johannesburg, is the local Focal Point of the project. The AICC organises the local activities like project meetings. Moreover the AICC promotes and advises companies and organisations on the use of the HRCA tools.

Together with the participating organisations it was decided to develop a local version of the HRCA. This version of the HRCA specifically includes South African legislation and the local socio-political and economic circumstances. The HRCA-SA is based on the South African Country Risk Assessment (CRA). Issues like HIV/AIDS and affirmative action are included in this version. The tool was tested by companies and organisations in two testing rounds. Both the digital and the hard copy version of the HRCA-SA are to be launched in March 2008 in South Africa. The project organisations will work with the HRCA-SA, not only by promoting the tool to companies, but also by conducting research on companies operating in South Africa.

Together with the South African company Strategic Productivity, Aim for human rights developed a game on human rights and business. There is an international version, and a South African version which is adapted to the specific South African context. Players manage a fictional company, where next to the daily business problems human rights dilemma’s need to be solved. Aim for human rights developed this educational game for representatives of companies, NGOs and government institutions in order to create more awareness on corporate responsibilities for human rights in a playful manner. Read more

The South Africa project is the first in a series of African projects of the HR&B programme. Aim for human rights is currently starting a similar project in Kenya; a project in Uganda will follow in 2009.