Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) staff from regional, field, and head offices have undergone a week-long training on business and human rights organised by the Directorate of Monitoring and Inspections (DM&I) and funded by ENABEL, Uganda.
Selected participants were divided into two groups, with the first group training on Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th 2025, and the second group training on Thursday 11th and Friday 12th, 2025 at Source of the Nile Hotel in Jinja. The trainings were facilitated by Dr. Roselyn Karugonjo-Segawa and Dr. Patricia Nduru.
Ms. Ruth Ssekindi, the Director of Monitoring and Inspections at the Uganda Human Rights Commission, underscored the need for National Human Rights Institutions to prioritize human rights monitoring in businesses. She indicated that since businesses employ many people, they are most likely to abuse human rights. She shared highlights from several monitoring visits to various businesses across the country, pointing out a number of interventions of the commission regarding the rights abuses discovered during the visits.
The staff were taken through topics including understanding the context of business and human rights in global and national perspectives. While facilitating the staff, Dr. Roselyn Karugonjo-Segawa emphasized that whereas businesses contribute positively to national development by increasing employment opportunities and improving access to public services, they also contribute negatively through polluting the environment, discrimination, underpaying workers, child labour, forcibly evicting communities without adequate compensation, not ensuring workplace safety, and invasion of privacy violations.
She therefore stressed that for human rights in businesses to be promoted and protected, the three pillars of the UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights must be followed. The governments have a duty to protect the rights of people. Corporations have a duty to respect the rights of workers, and victims of rights abuses must have access to a remedy.
Staff were also called upon to embrace the use of digital tools in gathering information, communicating with people and monitoring. While delivering a presentation on Data Management and use of Digital tools for Business and Human Rights Monitoring, Documentation, and Reporting, Dr. Patricia Nduru emphasized the use of social media monitoring tools to monitor public complaints. She urged members to leverage the available technology to monitor the impact of businesses in specific regions, real-time alerts on abuses of human rights and to identify trends.
She added that UHRC staff should customise human rights management platforms to manage information and processes by securing the content and then integrating AI-powered analytics (machine learning). She noted that such platforms can be used to collect data, identify potential violations, assess risks, and enhance accountability while ensuring confidentiality.
Both facilitators and trainees made recommendations to enhance the promotion and protection of human rights in businesses. Among the recommendations was the need to continue conducting human rights education with a specific focus on business and human rights. Members also suggested the need for UHRC to engage business owners and business associations to educate them on business and human rights. It was also recommended that the UHRC make use of digital tools to ease the work of investigating and monitoring business and human rights.
While giving a vote of thanks on behalf of the trainees, Ms… Brenda Akot appreciated ENABEL for facilitating the training and the facilitators for imparting business and human rights knowledge on UHRC staff. She noted that the knowledge acquired from this training will be helpful in the monitoring and documenting of business and human rights going forward.
The training was closed by Ms. Priscilla Nyarugoye, a Senior Human Rights Officer, on behalf of Director Ruth Ssekindi. In her closing remarks, Ms. Nyarugoye appreciated ENABEL, the facilitators and all UHRC staff for attending. She commended UHRC staff for their active participation throughout the sessions and for making important recommendations.
