KARACHI, Sept 27: A one-day pre-launch workshop on “Global Compact” on Saturday urged Pakistan business to extend an open support and publicly advocate the nine principles of Global Compact launched by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in 1999.

The nine principles are drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ILO’s Fundamental Principles on Rights at Work, and the RIO Principles on Environment and Development.

The Compact asks companies to embrace, support and enact, within their sphere of influence, a set core of values. A few of which are that business should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights, uphold the freedom of association, and effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, elimination of all forms of force and compulsory labour, the effective abolition of child labour and elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Of the five countries of South Asia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are signatory of seven core ILO conventions out of eight. India is signatory to only four. It has not signed freedom of association ILO convention, collective bargaining agent convention, minimum age convention and worst form of child labour convention.

Organized by the Employers’ Federation of Pakistan in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO), the workshop heard federal industries and production secretary Muhammad Javed Ashraf Hussain who was the chief guest.

Ashraf Tabani, president of the Federation presented welcome address. Participants were I.A. Rahman, director, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan; Koen Compier, senior specialist on international labour standards, Geneva; Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, LEAD Pakistan; On der Yuder, UN resident coordinator in Pakistan; and Johannes Lokollo, director ILO in Pakistan.

In his remarks, federal secretary Javed Ashraf raised the basic questions: How are our organizations meeting social responsibilities? How do we create an environment in which business does what it does best — create jobs and wealth — while ensuring that people’s basic needs are met?

He said that the companies could best promote human rights and improved labour and environmental standards by the way they conducted their own business and by the spread of good corporate practices.

“By setting themselves high standards in these fields, they exercise a positive influence in their immediate environment and among customers, suppliers and business associates,” he observed and further pointed out that by creating wealth and jobs, companies help defeat poverty — the enemy of the humanitarian values.

Javed Ashraf put his point that supporting and advancing the nine principles of the Global Compact “is not only the right thing to do — it makes good business sense.”

He urged the companies to carry out a human rights assessment of the situation where are or intend to do business to identify the risks of involvement in human right abuses and company’s potential impact on the situation.

The federal secretary called upon the companies to adopt explicit policies which protect the human rights of workers in its direct employment and its supply chain and that these companies should ensure that the security arrangements, whether its own, contracted or supplied by the state, do not contribute to human rights violations.

Ashraf Tabani recalled UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s speech at the World Economic Forum in 1999 where he first espoused the idea of Global Compact. He said that Pakistan’s Employers’ Federation joined the employers’ federation of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka on October 16, 2002, in passing a unanimous resolution to declare whole hearted support to the nine principles of Global Compact.

Rajen Mehrottra, senior specialist on employers’ activities for South Asia, ILO India, in his presentation disclosed that there are 1,240 companies, which have declared their adherence to the Global Compact. The highest number of such companies i.e 180 is from France, followed by 176 in Poland, 118 in Spain, 93 in the Philippines and 87 in India.