'New OECD Watch guidance on gender due diligence', 30 April 2021

OECD Watch has published a guide explaining how civil society can evaluate a company’s gender due diligence. Irresponsible business conduct can adversely impact women and LGBTQ+ people in unique and gender-specific ways. The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises call on businesses to prevent and address their impacts through undertaking human rights and environmental due diligence… and urges companies to apply a gender perspective when appropriate… Women and LGBTQ+ people experience adverse business impacts differently, and often more seriously, than men. Women workers typically face high rates of gender-based discrimination, harassment, and violence at work with less stable contracts, lower pay and benefits, and reduced access to maternal health protections, training, and safety equipment. Women and girl community members face gender-specific impacts from extractive and infrastructure projects such as displacement from land and natural resources, disrupted social status and educational access, and exposure to prostitution and sexual violence. People of non-binary gender also suffer gender-linked discrimination in MNE value chains and, along with women, face different and increased harms when they act as human rights defenders. Businesses also rarely consider how their conduct may impact all people differently based on intersecting aspects of their identity…