Jewellery brands face rights watch
Human Rights Watch ( HRW), a US-based body, has rated Indian jewellery brands Tanishq, TBZ and Kalyan Jewellers ‘very weak’ on the standard of sourcing gold and diamonds from places ‘not tainted with human rights abuses’.
Thirteen global jewellery brands were selected on the basis of domestic and international visibility. Tanishq, a Tata Group company responded to HRW, two other Indian players did not, and hence, were not ranked. HRW advised all of them to trace the origins of the gold and diamonds used in their businesses and ensure they were not tainted with human rights abuses. “Tell your customers what you are doing to address human rights in your supply chain,” it told them.
In a report titled, The hidden cost of jewellery: Human rights in supply chains and the responsibility of jewelry companies, it ranked 13 jewellery and watch companies globally.
The report says: “Sometimes children have been injured and even killed doing hazardous work in smallscale gold or diamond mines. Communities have faced ill-health and environmental harm because mines have polluted waterways with toxic chemicals. And, civilians have suffered enormously as abusive armed groups have enriched themselves through mining.”
Juliane Kippenberg, associate child rights director at HRW and coauthor of the report, told Business Standard, “Many jewellers can do
more to find out if their gold or diamonds are tainted by child labour or other human rights abuses.” She said companies buying gold and diamonds should put in more efforts and disclose transparently on their sourcing to ensure that their suppliers have protected human rights during mining.
The idea behind this exercise is to make all stakeholders, from mines to markets, aware and to ensure rights are protected while sourcing.
When asked, C K Venkataraman, chief executive officer of jewellery division, Titan Company, said his organisation was a signatory to the Tata Code of Conduct about the right ways of doing business. He asserted Titan strives to source its gold, diamonds and jewellery in the right, ethical, way.
“Titan is not in agreement with many dimensions of the framework used by HRW. On aspects of chain of custody, assessment of human rights risks, response to human rights risks and third-party verification, it is Titan’s view that the framework assigns undue oversight responsibility to the buyer of gold and diamonds. Most of the suppliers of gold and diamonds are reputed global banks and corporations much larger than Titan Company. It would be unfair and impractical to expect Titan to exercise such oversight on their processes and policies and, would in fact tantamount to a transfer of accountability. As such, Titan is not in agreement with the assessment about the company’s brand Tanishq,” said Venkataraman.
On HRW’s public reporting of policies and suppliers, Venkataraman responded: “Titan is in touch with legal experts to determine the manner in which all this information, including details about its suppliers, are to be made public on a regular basis.”
Kalyan Jewellers and TBZ didn’t respond to the e-mail seeking their views. However, Kippenberg said, “Titan made the effort to speak to us and we see that as positive. The other two companies didn’t respond to our questions. TBZ did attempt but very late, while the report was being finalised. They haven’t contacted us since.”
The report says for diamonds, there is the Kimberley Process and certification by the Responsible Jewellery Council.
However, according to her, “They do not by themselves provide sufficient assurance that diamonds or gold have been mined without contributing to abuse. The Kimberley Process is focused narrowly on diamonds linked to rebel forces, applies only to rough diamonds, and places no direct responsibility on companies. For gold OECD has responsible sourcing guidelines.”
For gold sourcing, the NGO focused on whether companies chose to disclose enough information to ensure precious metal and stones were sourced from suppliers which had taken adequate safeguards to protect human rights. For this, there were seven questions such as whether they (jewellery companies) know the origin from where the stones and metals were mined, whether the mines were audited from this perspective, whether due- diligence from the human rights point of view was done, whether these companies disclose names of suppliers, and whether they have a policy for responsible sourcing and human rights protection.