Deal #3460

People in many of the communities were not sufficiently consulted about the plantation expansions,they did not give their consent.

The company has put expansion plans on hold since 2004. The plan was to develop a new plantation area within the concession (including outgrowers operating on the lease). This development was due to be undertaken within the existing concession area.

The abuses include mass land seizures and displacements of indigenous, destruction of sacred heritage and livelihood sites

The company has been accused of evicting entire villages.

Destruction of their towns and villages, pollution of water sources, desecration of shrines and sacred places, harassment, intimidation, arrest and detention of human rights defenders.Threats to food security, has deteriorated and access to water has become difficult for many residents of villages around the plantations.Simpson Snoh, ARD Program Liaison told a news conference that they have been repeated reports subjected to sexual violence of women by subcontractors and, in some cases, by plantation security guards. In a particularly serious incident in 2013, plantation security and police violently raided the village of Daokai within the Socfin 2 concession area,” he quoted portion of the report.He disclosed that the plantation security and police ransacked houses, stole electronic equipment and beat up a villager. Simpso Sno also mentioned that according the report by Swiss-based human rights group, Bread for all (Bfa) and her Liberian partners, Green Advocates International (GAI), Alliance for Rural Democracy (ARD) and Natural Resource Women Platform (NRWP), LAC and their owner company Socfin violated fundamental human rights and due diligence standards which they are required to adhere to under applicable Liberian laws and international instruments including, for example, the Constitution of Liberia, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), Voluntary Guidelines on the Governance of Tenure of the FAO (VGGT), and the IFC Performance Standards (PS) as well as the OECD Guidelines

Compensation payments were made for loss of crops and houses, they were in most cases insufficient to compensate for the losses incurred

Some people can obtain employment and enjoy the opportunity to benefit from companies’ school systems. For many whose land was taken, however, these promises never materialize

Operates a number of schools, internships for young people, training of midwives, company hospital offers medical services to persons in the surrounding towns and contractors, partners in sanitation projects

Representative Vincent Willie had informed the President during a citizen interaction at the Civil Compound #3 as part of his tour of Grand Bassa of the need to rectify the LAC agreement to make it mandatory for the company to pay royalty to the community in which it operates. The authors of the report "bread for all" called on the Government of Liberia to take appropriate measures to ensure protection for the rights of communities affected by these plantations in keeping with Liberian laws and international standards to which the government is a party. The authors also plead on the government to ensure that provisions of the new Land Rights Act relating to the review and/or extension of concessions after their expiration are applied to the SRC and LAC plantations. The companies involved are also being called upon to adhere to the national and international standards to which they are obligated and ensure that the violations attributed to their operations are properly looked into and appropriate remedies are provided the affected communities.