Government Holds the 5th Annual Symposium on Business and Human Rights

Uganda is holding the 5th annual symposium on Business and Human Rights, a priority of the government as stipulated in the National Development Plan 3 NDPIII with the private sector development as a major driver of economic transformation.

Addressing media on Tuesday 07/11/2023, the Minsiter of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Hon Betty Amongi noted that the contribution of investors is manifested through creation of job opportunities especially for young people and the women, generation of revenue through payment of taxes, technological transfer and skills development for the human resource, market opportunities for our farmers and supplementing Government efforts in provision of social services such as education and health among others.

"Notwithstanding these benefits, there are cases of undesirable effects of the businesses on the welfare of the communities such as pollution of the environment, violation of workers’ rights, sexual abuses, and misguided displacements, adulteration of goods, corruption in business processes and use of child labour in the 2 2 chain of businesses," Hon Amongi said.

To address human rights concerns, in the year 2021, Uganda adopted a National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights. The plan is a key tool in providing guidance to State and non-State actors on the requirement that all business operations are to be conducted in line with human rights standards.

This year, the theme of engagement is “Assessing Uganda’s journey in access to justice for business and human rights’. The theme was picked purposefully to check the progress in guaranteeing access to justice for those who claim their rights have been violated by businesses. 

The minister raised a number of constraints which include; knowledge gaps among citizens on their rights, long distance to courts which limits physical accessibility, inadequate number of judicial officers, high cost of litigation, limited provision of legal aid services especially for civil matters, delayed payment of compensations, limited enforcement of judicial decisions, inadequate internal grievance redress mechanisms, high level of case backlog before courts of judicature and corruption.

"Dear viewers, while we pledge to continue working collectively as government entities to address these challenges, it is the responsibility of the different stakeholders as well to prevent violation of human rights at all levels," Hon Amongi said.

"We call upon business operators and other players to adhere to human rights standards, embrace positive conflict resolution mechanisms and take steps to close gaps that lead to an increase in cases of violations," she added.