The gender blindness of human rights due diligence in global supply chains

Abstract

Since the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in 2011 the recognition amongst companies is continuously increasing on how business operations can be related to human rights violations in a variety of ways. One of the key accomplishments of the UNGPs is the introduction of the human rights due diligence (HRDD) mechanism to prevent human rights violations. HRDD has become one of the main tools for companies to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their adverse human rights impacts and thus, HRDD is the way companies can “know and show that they respect rights”. However, the UNGPs contain little detail as how companies should develop gender-responsive human rights due diligence (GR-HRDD) processes and there is also no systematic treatment of gender-responsive HRDD obligations within international human rights laws and policies, and thus, the GR-HRDD is still in its infancy. The thesis is addressing this gab and aims to examine how a gender- responsive HRDD can be implemented (conducted) in the garment industry. The focus of the thesis is hence on the garment industry as this sector is among the largest employers of women workers globally.