Ms Rosa María Mateus Parra:

I am grateful for the opportunity to address the committee. I come from a country that works hard to silence us in the work we carry out so the opportunity to speak to the committee is important to us. I shared information with Christian Aid that I hope gets to the committee. We have provided broader and more detailed information to the committee in the format of short documentaries that I hope members will have time to see.

We are facing huge abuses of power and what I want to speak to and make clear is that there is an asymmetry and imbalance in the way we are able to address this issue. That continues to be the case, even in settings such as the OECD. There exist tools and mechanisms that we have tried to make use of but these instruments are not designed to benefit communities and people. Instead they end up maintaining and upholding this imbalance and asymmetry of power that exists between people and companies themselves.

There was a comment about free trade agreements and my recommendation would be to evaluate in detail the clauses that exist in those agreements on human rights and the protection of the environment. We cannot allow these companies to continue running roughshod over people and their rights to territory. It is incredible to the communities that companies exist in their territory that proclaim themselves to be socially responsible, that the companies continue to violate their rights and that people continue to buy from them.

Speaking to the alternatives before us, I would like to call attention to the extreme importance of us listening to the communities that are having dialogues about this issue of a just transition and what it could look like. We must also examine what it would look like to close down these companies and this mine in particular. Members could ensure there is effective participation by these communities in such dialogues. I would like to thank Deputy Clarke for remembering the role of women and for understanding that women suffer differential impacts in human rights violations.