Respecting human rights

Dignity and respect

AngloGold Ashanti’s commitment to upholding and respecting human rights is an expression of our core value of treating everyone – always – with dignity and respect. We endeavour to ensure that respect for human rights permeates all aspects of our business and have enshrined this commitment in our global Human Rights Policy, which applies to employees, contractors and other business partners including supply chain, state actors and joint venture partners.

Aligned to the United Nation’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), we have due diligence processes in place to identify, prevent, mitigate and report on our impacts on human rights. We also follow processes to enable the remediation of any adverse human rights impacts we may have caused or contributed to.

We have recorded two years without a reported human rights violation in any of our operating jurisdictions. We are mindful that we cannot allow any complacency to creep into our business, particularly given its scale and diverse operating footprint, and must continually seek ways to improve our human rights performance.

Potential human rights violations and allegations are generally self-reported, which emphasises a maturing human rights culture in the business. All operations have grievance and independent anonymous whistle-blowing mechanisms accessible to internal and external stakeholders. All allegations are rigorously investigated using accepted investigation protocols, and where appropriate, investigations are independent.

We participate in the UN Forum for Business and Human Rights, the VPSHR initiative and the UNGC. As a member of the ICMM, AngloGold Ashanti actively participates in various working groups and initiatives designed to promote human rights.

We continue to conduct group-level human rights due diligence (HRDD) assessments, assessing progress against the 2017 selfassessment baselines. In 2019, we initiated group-level HRDD assessments as part of our ongoing combined assurance process. This further enhances awareness, raising the conversation about the rights of all stakeholders.

The integration of human rights standards throughout our supply chain remains an area of focus. We are carrying out work around supplier self-assessments and better processes to monitor and track performance. This is proving successful in contributing to the elimination of child labour and issues related to modern day slavery.

We maintain that through education and creating general awareness among internal and external stakeholders, and our resolute commitment to the respect for human rights, we can achieve our goal of zero harm. In this regard, 11,547 people underwent classroom or online training in 2019.

Percentage of security personnel trained on VPSHR and human rights

99.5%
(2018: 98%)


Percentage of new suppliers screened using criteria on human rights, labour practices, environment and impact on society*

40%

  • * In 2019, AngloGold Ashanti fully implemented the enhanced and more robust Responsible Sourcing Programme across its Continental Africa Region sites. This programme has become part of the vendor screening process, with assessments being conducted by site-specific discipline experts who are trained on how to identify and handle possible risks posed by a supplier. This rollout is enabling us to apply a consistent approach in respect to our supplier screening process.
Indicator 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015
Number of human rights reported incidents under VPSHR00321
Number of human rights allegations under VPSHR31264
Security personnel trained in the organisations' human rights policies and procedures (%) 99.5 98949491
Incidents of violations involving the rights of indigenous peoples00000
New suppliers screened (%)
Using labour practices criteria 40
Using human rights criteria 40
Using environmental criteria 40
Using impact on society criteria 40
In 2019, AngloGold Ashanti fully implemented an enhanced and more robust Responsible Sourcing Programme across its Continental Africa Region sites. This programme has become part of the vendor screening process, with assessments being conducted by site-specific discipline experts who are trained on how to identify and handle possible risks posed by a supplier. This rollout is enabling us to apply a consistent approach in respect to our supplier screening process.
Operations and suppliers identified as having significant risk for incidents of child labour and measures taken to effectively abolish child labour*0
Operations and suppliers identified as having significant risk for incidents of forced or compulsory labour*0
  • *As an organisation we have not idenitfied nstances of child labour at any of the operations. AngloGold Ashanti subscribes to the International Labour Organisations principles and as such have internal global policies to this effect, namely: Ethics Regional head of departments, general manager’s and all management are responsible for the implementation of the policies.

Prioritised SDGs

10 REDUCE INEQUALITIES
  • 10.3. Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard.


16 PEACE, JUSTICE AND STRONG INSTITUTIONS
  • 16.10. Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements.