Businesses, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), international organisations and governments commonly hire private security companies (PSCs) to protect sites, assets and staff. It is a multi-billion dollar contracting industry that employs millions of guards all over the world.

All too often, however, clients largely select PSCs on the basis of cost. This pricing pressure often translates into extremely poor working conditions for security workers. This, in turn, can lead to cascading human rights problems as the abused become the abusers. Private security guards have been known to either directly or indirectly cause harm to the general public and people in their care through negligent or abusive behaviour as incidents of excessive use of force and other violations continue to make headlines...

The effort to prevent human rights abuses in the private security industry has tended to focus on gaps in regulatory oversight and accountability mechanisms. Less emphasis has been placed on prevention. Yet understanding the underlying causes of violations – including working conditions – is absolutely critical to preventing further abuses.

By 2022, the International Code of Conduct Association (ICoCA), UNI Global Union (UNI), and the University of Denver teamed up on a global research project to assess this critical yet overlooked factor in personnel’s overall well-being and PSCs’ human rights track record. The study was designed to provide key insight into trends at the national, regional and global level. In 2022, project researchers interviewed some 40 experts and surveyed nearly 400 private security personnel in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America. This data was supplemented by surveys conducted by ICoCA in March 2023 among nearly 3,000 guards across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.