is the application of a gender lens to each step of the due diligence process to proactively identify and manage human rights risks and impacts on women.
The need for gender-responsive due diligence
Nearly 9.5 million women are estimated to be victims of forced and bonded labour and trafficking in the private sector. High risk sectors for women working are apparel, electronics, tourism, health and social care, domestic work, agriculture (including fisheries) and fresh cut flowers.
Women tend to be disproportionately or differently affected by modern slavery practices due to high rates of marginalisation, high concentration in informal sectors, lack of education and awareness of basic rights, lack of social protection to assert their rights and lack of access and control over resources and decision-making.
Assessing the risk of modern slavery practices to women in the supply chain is crucial. However, conventional approaches to due diligence may in many cases fail to capture the full breadth and depth of gender-related human rights risks. As such, there is a high risk that companies may fail to institute measures that respond to women’s specific needs and vulnerabilities.
Corporate actors including social auditors may also not have sufficient knowledge of gender, human rights, or direct experience with vulnerable groups. This limits the understanding of who potential and actual victims are, what makes them vulnerable, how to approach them, and, what needs they have – both in the immediate and long-term.
What companies will struggle with
Gender discrimination accumulate and compound over a woman’s lifetime making detection, reporting and remediation challenging. For example, companies may need to take the following considerations in their policies and responses:
a) Women are less likely to be aware that they are victims of negative human rights impacts if they have become so used to violence and discrimination or if they feel responsible for the harm caused to them;
b) Affected women are less likely to be able to articulate their experiences as victims. In many cases, affected women are not able to express what has happened to them without external help;
c) Affected women are less likely to seek help or report exploitative practices even when they are aware of grievance mechanisms in place;
d) Affected women are less likely to trust their employers or external persons such as social auditors. Further, many women are not comfortable reporting certain kinds of violations with male social auditors (for e.g. sexual harassment), especially as social audits may not be gender-sensitive;
e) Affected women are likely to exhibit behaviours which are inconsistent with traditional understandings of “victim-hood” (such as being friendly with their offenders or laughing as they recount incidents), leading to their complaints not being detected, taken seriously or even dismissed;
f) Affected women who have experienced trauma are not likely to be able to fully recount incidences, leading to their complaints not being detected, taken seriously or even dismissed;
g) Affected women are likely to withdraw their complaints or pretend the issue has been resolved in the early stages of the grievance process for fear of breach of privacy, loss of work, wages, social stigma, pressure and retaliation.
Gender Assessment
A gender assessment is a process of understanding the historical social and economic inequalities faced by women within a certain context – for the purpose of informing corporate policies and due diligence processes.
A gender assessment will evaluate:
a) the likelihood of human rights risks on women;
b) the nature and severity of those risks;
c) the impact of those risks on women’s physical, psychological, sexual and reproductive health and rights;
d) the imminence and urgency of those risks;
e) whether women are likely to report those risks;
f) whether women are likely to withdraw their reports mid-way;
g) whether women are likely to be at risk of retaliation and further harm upon reporting;
h) whether interim remedies are necessary to safeguard women before final determination is made;
i) whether additional support measures are necessary to support women to report harm;
j) the nature and duration of remedies to assess effectiveness in addressing all aspects of women’s wellbeing holistically.
Intersectional Assessment
An intersectional gender assessment takes the assessment one step further, recognising that not all women face the same risks.
Some women are more vulnerable as a result of their ethnicity, caste, education, age, mobility, disability, pregnancy status, immigration status, amongst others.
An intersectional gender assessment is necessary to ensure that corporate measures account for those inequalities. It will also prevent well-intentioned interventions from leading to negative consequences including putting women at further risk of discrimination, violence and causing retrauma.
What are the 5-steps of GRDD?
Step 1: Embed gender in policies
The first step of Gender-Responsive Due Diligence (GRDD) is to establish a gender-responsive policy framework aimed at respecting human rights, including women’s rights. We support companies to evaluate and revise current policies, strategies and policies and develop new ones based on national and international laws and regulations. This entails, amongst other things, evaluating if current policies and practices are gender-neutral and therefore blind to potentially discriminatory outcomes against women.
Step 2: Identify and assess actual and potential adverse impacts
The second step of the GRDD process starts with identifying specific gender risks. Gendered risks are often less visible and suppressed due to prevailing norms and gender inequalities. As such detection of specific incidences will be a challenge even when a human rights risk is known to be endemic in a particular industry, sector or community. We can support companies by conducting a human rights impact assessment on the likelihood, severity and urgency of gender-based human risks, accounting for differentiated risks between men and women, as well as, within marginalised and vulnerable communities.
Step 3: Address adverse impacts
the third step of GRDD is to take action to prevent any further negative impacts on stakeholders and to mitigate risks for the future. This will require internal decision-making, assignment of responsibility, budget allocations and oversight processes enable effective responses to such impacts. We can make recommendations on policy and management processes and practices to address systematic concerns within business operations and projects. We can also conduct awareness and capacity-building workshops to sensitise businesses and relevant stakeholders on a range of issues and skills such as international law on salient human rights issues, concepts, causes and consequences of sexual and gender-based violence, case management, rights-based approach, trauma-informed approach and practical skills such as interviewing aggrieved individuals, assessing risks, drafting a statement of facts, analysing information and conducting an intersectional assessment.
Step 4: Monitor implementation and evaluate results
The fourth step of GRDD requires ongoing work to review and track the effectiveness and impact of human rights measures. We can support companies to revise or develop a Monitoring and Evaluation Plan and quantitative and qualitative indicators to measure outcomes and impacts. Consultations with women organisations and local community groups will also be carried out to examine the effectiveness of measures on differentiated, intersectional and disproportionate adverse impacts on women’s human rights.
Step 5: Remediate
The final step of GRDD is to rectify adverse impacts that have occurred. We support companies to review and recommend remedies to ensure that the remedies are multi-faceted, i.e. preventive, redressive and deterrent, and, that they address the differentiated intersectional impacts on women and their human rights. We can also review and advise on “gender-transformative remedies” to address systemic issues that underpin discrimination, gender-based violence and gender stereotyping. Data from remediation processes can also provide valuable insights into the locations within the supply chain where human rights risks manifest. We can can analyse the data and provide recommendations to improve remediation approaches and procedures for the future.