G4S blacklisted by Norway for human rights concerns

So why is it still in FTSE’s index of ethical shares?

THERE were calls last night for G4S to be thrown out of a leading ethical share index after it was blacklisted by Norway’s state-backed wealth fund over human rights concerns.

The £860bn Government Pension Fund Global will no longer invest in the security services group because of an ‘unacceptable risk’ it is responsible for violations against its staff in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

But despite this latest scandal, G4S still boasts on its website membership of the FTSE 4 Good index of socially responsible companies. It has been included on the index – compiled by stock market data provider FTSE Russell – for the last three years.

The Norwegian fund’s Council on Ethics, which makes decisions about which firms it can invest in, found migrant workers were being harassed, had their passports confiscated and were being paid less than had been agreed.

G4S has 18,000 employees in the two countries, many of whom are from India, Pakistan and Nepal. The council’s investigations found workers had paid fees to recruitment firms to work for G4S and taken out loans in their home country to pay the fees.

But when they got to the Gulf, they had to spend much of their salary paying the debt, meaning they had little chance of leaving.

The council said G4S had not done enough to stop the alleged abuses. The firm said it had been in talks with the council for three years and it ‘wholeheartedly’ agrees ‘that migrant workers need care and support and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect at all times’. The security group has appointed a full-time migrant worker co-ordinator to research recruitment agencies. But the decision by the fund will be a blow to G4S, which has around 570,000 employees in 90 countries.

A spokesman from investor charity Share Action told the Mail: ‘The G4S board must publicly take full responsibility for the abuses. It should be removed from the FTSE 4 Good index.’

Cliff Weight, director at nonprofit investor group Sharesoc, said: ‘These are unbelievably serious allegations. It is clearly time for them [G4S] to come out of the FTSE 4 Good index.’

The fund was established in 1990 to invest the earnings from Norway’s oil industry for future generations. It invests in 9,158 companies worldwide.