US firm axes top officials accused of sexual abuse in Taita

An American company involved in carbon harvesting in Taita Taveta and which was accused in a recent report of condoning sexual abuse of its workers now says it has fired top employees involved.

The report was released early November by Kenya Human Rights Commission after its joint investigation with a Dutch lobby, the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, also known as SOMO.

It detailed narrations from some of the victims it alleged endured the ordeals at the hands of senior bosses of Wildlife Works Carbon based in Kisagau village, Taita.

The victims, mainly women, claimed that officials demanded sexual favours to hire them.

But Wildlife Works Carbon president Mike Korchinsky at the time denied the allegations, saying that the organisation had received a letter from the lobbies about the allegations and requested that they do not publish their report before it did its own independent investigations to respond exhaustively.

Its senior director for media and advocacy Joel Finkelstein said the organisation was made aware of the allegations and was taking immediate action.

Wildlife Works Carbon now says its “extensive independent third-party investigation” is complete and the results are in and that they had caused heads to roll.

It said it found the head ranger, who is the entity's security chief, to be culpable in the complaints and has fired him.

The lead human resource boss has also been shown the door for ignoring the numerous complaints that had been brought to his attention, using intimidation to scare away those who reported.

“Wildlife Works has terminated the head of security at our Kasigau Corridor project for gross misconduct, including conduct in violation of the company’s policy against sexual harassment,” Wildlife Works Carbon said in an update brief.

“We also terminated the HR manager on the basis that he created a culture of fear and intimidation that, according to interviewed personnel, prevented reporting of sexual harassment incidents.”

Wildlife Works Carbon says the revelation by KHRC and Somo prompted  it to commission an independent sexual violence investigation in its other global carbon harvesting sites “out of an abundance of caution and concern.”

“..we will be carrying out independent investigations at our other global project sites and regional offices to make sure we go above and beyond the international safeguarding standards.”

The organisation says the same individuals had previously been suspended immediately following receipt of a letter from Somo in August.

Besides condemning the named individuals’ behaviours, the entity also “sincerely apologise[s] to the women and families directly affected, all our employees, our stakeholder communities in Kenya and our customers and partners around the world.”

Besides apology, it said, it had taken concrete steps to ensure such an environment that condones the culture of sexual assault and impunity that sustains it does not obtain.

“We realise that it is our responsibility to do more than apologise. We have hired a female Kenyan counsellor who is on site for several weeks to conduct listening sessions with staff and to provide ongoing support for the women affected as well as all employees who wish to speak with her.”

“Part of this healing process will be to provide effective remediation to the women in our company and in the community who were directly affected.”

The counsellor will also be auditing their policies and procedures and assisting in the creation of grievance and human resources reporting policies.

Further, Wildlife Works Carbon says it is in the process of forming a gender steering committee for the project whose members will be decided by the female staff.

“They will play a pivotal role in designing company policies and our ongoing engagement of gender rights specialists. We will also be undertaking leadership and accountability training at all levels of the company,” the group said.

”