Middle East & North Africa Trainee

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, a high-impact, global organization serving advocates around the world in the innovative field of business & human rights, is seeking a Trainee who will support our research on technology / human rights, labour rights and migrant workers’ rights in the region.

Part-time post: 3 days (21 hours) per week for six months from November

Location: Preference for one of our office locations: Tunis, London, New York, Berlin, Colombia but remote working from other locations will be considered for the right candidate.

Compensation: Living wage

Reports to: MENA Regional Researcher (based in Tunis) – the candidate will be required to be able to overlap at least half their working day with CET/ GMT+1/ UTC+1 time zones

Closing date for applications: 31st October

Interview date: On rolling basis

Applicants must have: Fluent spoken and written Arabic and English. Fluency in French is a plus

THE ORGANIZATION

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre works with others to put human rights at the core of companies’ business models; to empower communities and workers to secure their rights and gain accountability for abuse; and, to encourage governments to create the right regulation and incentives to facilitate these outcomes. We are a global organization that is rooted in fifteen regions. We have more than 80 members of our Global Team based around the world who work with a rich network of human rights advocates in eight languages including Chinese, Arabic, and Russian. Our work covers the full gamut of human rights in business, with three priority issues: labour rights; responsible resource use; and protection of civic freedoms and human rights defenders.

Our three primary approaches to deliver this vision are:

• Strengthen organisations and communities to achieve greater equality of power in negotiations, with business and government, to advance their human rights. Use the evidence and data we generate to advocate and influence decision-makers including business, investors and governments

• Strengthen corporate accountability, due diligence and effective remedy for abuse

• Build transparency of the advances, challenges and abuse of human rights in business

THE POSITION

The Trainee will work closely with our MENA researcher over a six month period to increase our coverage of business and human rights issues in the MENA region (in both English and Arabic). This will involve daily monitoring and inputting media coverage, company disclosure and government, UN and NGO publications onto our website to increase the volume of regional materials hosted.

The Trainee will also play an important role in conducting outreach to companies and research using Resource Centre methodologies to achieve project and regional objectives, including:

• Support gathering company responses to alleged abuses;

• Analysing cases of labour abuse to generate statistical data on corporate abuse of migrant workers; and

• Supporting research on the digital technologies, private security and surveillance industries in the MENA region.

• All work will be aligned with the Resource Centre’s organisational aims of empowerment, accountability and transparency.

All work will be undertaken with the due care and attention required to create accurate, reliable data that forms the cornerstone of the Resource Centre’s work and credibility.

DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES

• Conduct online research and media monitoring to identify relevant news and materials for presentation on our website (in Arabic and English), in a compelling and accessible format for our audiences. This will include a wide range of business and human rights issues including labour rights abuse, infringement of civic rights and freedoms, displacement and land rights’ infringement and attacks on human rights defenders.

• Identify where allegations of corporate abuse have been made against named companies, research and identify appropriate company contacts and utilise our Company Response Mechanism (with the support of the MENA RR) to engage with and invite companies to respond by email to concerns raised by media and civil society.

• Support with conducting research of publicly available government contracts on border control management In Tunisia, Jordan, Palestine and the broader MENA

• Conduct research for analysis and briefings on the sale and export of digital surveillance technologies to MENA governments

• Compiling data to support with research and writing of a brief on the responsibilities of private security companies and companies in the surveillance industry supplying services to autocratic governments in the region.

• Provide research support to the Gulf project: analysing allegations of labour abuse occurring in the six GCC countries, and researching business interests and human rights impacts associated with the upcoming Qatar 2022 World Cup.

• Participate in fortnightly MENA team meetings and fortnightly organisation-wide meetings and, where appropriate, to offer updates on work.

KEY COMPETENCIES

• Languages: Fluent spoken and written Arabic and English. Fluency in French is a plus

• Values: Strong, demonstrable commitment to human rights and / or social justice

• Human rights experience: Up to one year’s work experience in the field of human rights, humanitarian aid, border control management or development work. A demonstrable interest or knowledge of business and human rights and/ or the Middle East & North Africa context is desirable.

• Communications: Strong written communications skills; awareness of the importance of attention to detail and professionalism in presenting materials for our website users.

• Self-starter: Ability to use own initiative and work independently within the team; willingness to pre-empt requests or action tasks independently.

• Data handling and inputting: Ability to deal with excel spreadsheets and contacts management systems to ensure accurate and up-to-date data inputting; high standard of proofreading.

• Teamwork: Ability to operate within a remote-based team across time-zones and operate constructively and effectively at a distance.

• Organisation: Strong organisational and prioritisation skills to multi-task efficiently.

MORE ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

The Resource Centre covers the full range of human rights impacts by business – from labour rights in the supply chain to pollution damaging health; from displacement of indigenous peoples to access to essential medicines; from workplace discrimination against disabled people to killings and torture by private military and security firms.

Further information is on our website: www.business-humanrights.org.