Ms Sorcha Tunney:

To amplify Dr. Widdis's remarks, the word "woman" or "gender" is not in the directive. As Dr. Widdis just mentioned, there is so much out there about how to do this. When we are talking about value chains, there are so many frameworks from the OECD and the UN about how to do this. Even in the recital of the directive, recognising that human rights abuses in this context affect women disproportionately would be important. When we talk about stakeholder engagement, we are talking about enabling women to engage in a safe space because some women will not be able to engage in front in men and also recognising the different roles women play within society and gender equality within that society. There is significant work to be done on strengthening the gender dimension.

Regarding the thresholds and the previous question around scope, at the moment, the latter is very high so a certain amount of turnover and workers is needed. We would say that this should be either-or so it is cumulative. We need to look at international standards that address the risk and severity of types of human rights abuse and possibly bring that language into the directive as well. Again, businesses are using those terms and are used to them after ten years of the principles.