"Letter to Acacia Mining's Board"

In light of your upcoming Annual General Meeting on 13 June 2019, we write to once again raise the human rights situation at Acacia Mining’s North Mara Gold Mine. In light of the ongoing lack of justice for serious human rights violations at the mine over many years, and the clear unsuitability of the company’s grievance mechanism to provide a fair and suitable remedy to the scores of victims, we believe it is vital that Acacia considers ending its agreement with the Tanzania police to provide security at the mine...

Secondly, closely related to the ongoing and serious human rights abuses, is the deeply flawed grievance process Acacia is operating at North Mara which aggravates the harm to victims.The UN Guiding Principles require that grievance mechanisms be “rights-compatible’ and warn that poorly designed or implemented grievance mechanisms heighten the sense of disempowerment and disrespect experienced by those using such processes. In our view, Acacia’s seriously flawed grievance mechanism falls into that category and is not compliant with the UN Guiding Principles. We urge you to suspend the existing grievance mechanism pending an independent review of the grievance process by a respected, internationally recognised third party, such as the UN Working Group on business and human rights, with a view to incorporating the repeated critiques made by victims, Tanzanian and international civil society...