REGIONAL BRIEFS
No Cause of Alarm
By the way, things have calmed down in Uganda. Things are now handled in the Netherlands; the Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation has requested the Embassy in Uganda to investigate the recent events.
Royal van Zanten employees entered a greenhouse that had just been disinfected and a week later, other employees entered a different Royal van Zanten greenhouse and came into contact with the remains of two eco-friendly products and a chemical agent.
Smit has been very disappointed about the way the two incidents were handled by all sorts of organisations and the media. The incidents got totally blown out of proportion – the Ugandan floricultural industry was accused of sexual harassment and slavery. Smit spoke with the union last week. “I asked them whether, during the 22 years that we have been here, there had ever been any reports of sexual harassment at our farms. And whether they had ever heard of us missing a single month’s payment. The union could only negate these things.”