Following a visit to the Porgera community, Catherine Coumans wrote to Dr. Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) to alert her to the fact that Canadian mining company Barrick Gold is abusing the use of a non-judicial grievance mechanism to get female victims of rape by security guards at Barrick’s Porgera Joint Venture Mine (PJV) in Papua New Guinea to sign away their right to legal recourse in return for remedy packages. The remedy program is also subject to a number of other serious concerns, which are detailed in these letters.
Initial letter to UNHCHR on Porgera, March 19, 2013