The deputy secretary of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia says she hopes a new national action plan on business and human rights in the country will influence businesses to have more respect for human rights in relation to working conditions and non-discrimination.
“Most important is the focus on state-owned enterprises where the government is the main shareholder,” says Nurul Hasanah at the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM). “If those companies don’t fully respect human rights, it just goes to show that the state is not respecting human rights.”
During a recent Raoul Wallenberg Institute workshop in Bangkok on business, human rights and the environment for Southeast Asian National Human Rights Institutions, Hasanah said the Malaysian government had asked the commission to work on a roadmap to identify the steps that needs to be taken and the actors that need to be included in the process of developing the plan.
The commission has just launched a strategic framework on how to go about it.
She says, “Hopefully we will be able to do this by the end of this month and then we can start lobbying the different government agencies to take on the idea.”
Hasanah says that this national action plan will give more transparency to how companies operate, which in the long term will benefit both the companies and the state by boosting their reputation.
Hasanah said the commission’s focus has changed from its early years. In the beginning, the commission was more concerned about working closely with the government, seeing it as the sole potential violator of human rights.
“But after we progressed economically, socially and politically, we noted that non-state actors, of course including businesses, also contribute and cause human rights violations, and we realised that it was important to also start engaging the business sectors,” she said.
Often, she said, businesses’ operations have a direct impact on the livelihood, health and well-being of the people, and of course also on the overall environment in the communities. “We are very mindful that the environment is a crucial factor for people’s well-being,” she said. “That’s why the topic of business, human rights and the environment are so important to focus on.”
RWI’s Senior Researcher Radu Mares, who participated in the recent workshop in Bangkok, says Hasanah and the small group of her colleagues at SUHAKAM who are working with business and human rights have made great achievements in a short period of time.
“They will become a leading voice in the debates in Malaysia and in the region regarding corporate responsibility,” he said.
Mares hopes the government and the private sector will be receptive to SUHAKAM’s work. “I also hope key stakeholders in this field, like large law and accounting firms, will support SUHAKAM’s efforts by offering their expertise pro bono to conduct baseline studies of the current regulatory framework in Malaysia covering business impacts on human rights,” he said.
SUHAKAM is one of the first Southeast Asian National Human Rights Institutions to start this work on the process of developing a national action plan on business and human rights.