• 4 Workers were provided three meals per day, consisting of unlimited rice and up to two cuts of meat. 4.6 Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) Human Rights Implicated: Right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; Right to life, liberty and security of the person Field Assessment Findings  Workers of subcontractors were      commonly not informed about which tower construction company or telecoms operator the tower was being built for, which implies that the operator’s and their 1st tier subcontractor’s health and safety and other operational standards may not have been transmitted to the site level. Workplace attention to health and safety varied greatly amongst the tower and fibre sites visited by researchers. Field teams regularly witnessed tower construction workers and fibre trench workers without personal protective equipment (PPE), for example: • Not fastening safety harnesses when climbing the towers • No gloves, e.g. while digging fibre cable trenches • Canvas shoes rather than hard toed shoes • No hard hats Even where workers had PPE to hand: • Researchers observed a number of occasions where workers asked if they “actually needed to wear it” or companies reporting workers not wearing it due to discomfort, such as not wearing safety suits in hotter weather, indicating lack of enforcement of PPE use by all workers while on site. • It was common for workers to have to buy or replace their own PPE, or compensate the value if they damaged it while working. Failure to ensure that emergency first aid kits were available at tower sites was also a common occurrence. • Where companies did provide first aid kits or fire extinguishers, workers reported they did not know how to use them in cases of emergencies and had not been provided any training. For fibre factories: • PPE in the form of cotton gloves was provided. • Workers received training on how to work machines and use the fire extinguisher. Conflict Areas Human Rights Implicated: Right to life, liberty and security of the person; Right to take part in the conduct of public affairs; Right to information Field Assessment Findings  There were some cases in which companies attempted to negotiate access to areas  to lay fibre cables with non-state armed groups (NSAGs). In some cases a fee was paid for this access. Researchers received reports of cases of operational delays, where local groups, including armed groups, blocked access to sites, due to lack of consultation at the site level. While some consultation with local leaders may have been undertaken, this may not have been communicated to or accepted by all stakeholders. 200 PAGE CHAPTER 4.6: LABOUR