Public Statement

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  • viernes 15 noviembre 2013

    Public Statement

    Dinant – Operating with respect for human rights

    Dinant has always conducted its business in a fair and legal manner. To enrich this heritage, Dinant has adopted a new program with the Voluntary Principles in Security and Human Rights, as part of its ongoing efforts to operate in a safe and respectful manner.

    The Voluntary Principles are international accepted standards for companies that operate in a consistent manner with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations and other similar protocols, international humanitarian law and the evolution of better actions regarding security, respecting the human rights. The Voluntary Principles were adopted by the industry, non-governmental organizations and different national governments in the year 2,000, providing guidance to companies, mainly to extractive businesses such as mining and energy. Since then, an increasing number of participants have adopted the Voluntary Principles as a basis for their efforts. The participating governments include the United States of America, United Kingdom, Netherland, Norway, Canada, Switzerland and Colombia. All large and medium-sized mining, oil and gas companies are participating in a formal or informal way. The main NGO’s have also joined the process.

    Dinant is committed at all levels in implementing policies that are consistent with the Voluntary Principles. The Dinant Management has signed and made public the company’s Human Rights Policy, which can be found on the website. Meetings have been established with officials from all levels, where Dinant has shared copies of the Voluntary Principles and its Human Rights Policy, as well as the commitments and expectations of the company. This initiative establishes Dinant as a leading company in these efforts in Honduras.

    To highlight these efforts, the company has created a central team at a corporate level exclusively to oversee the program implementation. Dinant has hired an international expert in the field to work with this central team for several months, including two intensive training sessions in Honduras with a total of four weeks lectures, seminars and practical exercises. This central team, will later be the coaches in Dinant for the diffusion and incorporation of the Voluntary Principles in the organizational culture.

    During these two training phases, Dinant gathered more than thirty employees from its management team in Honduras outside its facilities to be trained without interruptions in the program, which was translated to Spanish. In total, the commitment to this training reached to almost 200 man-days for high and middle management. The participants received training in the basics of Voluntary Principles, effective ways to interact with different stakeholders and in techniques for risk assessment and development of mitigation measures that respect human rights.

    Dinant’s program to implement the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights is a pioneering initiative in Honduras and in the agro-industrial sector. It is already an example for other companies to follow.

    Member of Dinant’s central team, providing training to Dinant employees.

     

    Dinant management team receiving training in Voluntary Principles.

     

    Voluntary Principles central team leader, provides training to Dinant’s management team.

     

    Dinant management team receiving training.