In a report card released today, an anti-genocide group failed or gave Ds to 16 out of 19 top 2008 Olympic sponsors - among them Visa, Coke and others known worldwide for their consumer brands - on their corporate social responsibility responses to China's support of the genocide in Darfur. The report accompanying the report card is called: "And Now "¦ Not a Word from Our Sponsors."
(To view click: http://www.dreamfordarfur.org/)
For corporations to live up to their own statements of "social responsibility" and their duty as Olympic sponsors, companies have a special obligation to take action on Darfur before the Games begin next August, says Dream for Darfur, a New York-based, non-profit campaign.
Dream for Darfur is using the 2008 Olympic Games as leverage to press China, Sudan's strongest business and political partner, to take urgent action to end the Darfur crisis. The slaughter and insecurity in Darfur have been on the rise, with more than 200,000 deaths, and 2.5 million people displaced since 2003. Despite hopes for progress this summer, there has been no viable movement toward peace. Experts agree that China has unrivaled leverage with Khartoum and could exert influence to allow an international force of peacekeepers into Darfur.
"Sponsors are supporting China's efforts to position itself in glowing terms on the world stage. But they are silent about China's role in the Darfur genocide, and in their silence, they are complicit," said Jill Savitt, Executive Director of Dream for Darfur.
Over the course of 16 weeks (May to October 2007), Dream for Darfur asked 19 Olympic sponsors (all 12 Worldwide Olympic Partners and seven Western-based sponsors and suppliers) to undertake specific steps to communicate to China the problematic nature of its role in Darfur. The group then graded each company on its response to the Darfur crisis in the report card released today.
For more information, please visit www.DreamForDarfur.org.
