Verité research has documented the ways in which high levels of violent crime and the incursion of maras (street gangs) and Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) have displaced a large number of Guatemalans from their homes and forced them to migrate. The Northern Triangle of Central America is the most violent region in the world; Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala are first, fourth, and fifth in the world, respectively, in terms of homicide rates. In the case of Guatemala, which registered the bloodiest civil war in all of Latin America with over 200,000 killed, today the per capita rate of killing surpasses the rate of killing during the civil war.
Today (March 31, 2014), Verité releases an in-depth case study of the risk of human and labor rights abuses in the production of palm oil in Guatemala. This report is the outcome of weeks of on-the-ground field research and expert consultation led by Research Program Manager Quinn Kepes.
With the support of Verité and Calvert Investments, San Francisco’s Department on the Status of Women worked closely with some of the Bay Area’s largest employers, including McKesson, Deloitte, Google, Recology, Symantec, and Gap. Together they crafted a web-based self-assessment tool—the Gender Equality Principles Initiative (GEPI)—for employers to benchmark their policies and practices and compile an extensive library of online resources to further promote gender equitable workplaces. GEPI was recently awarded the 2012 International Work-Life Balance Award in Milan, Italy.
