Drinking water is vital to human life, and access to water was declared a human right in 2010, yet some water companies continue infringing on these human rights by putting profits over people and draining water from areas where there are already water shortages or water scarcity.
It is unconscionable that these huge corporations continue to be allowed to drain developing countries’ groundwater to make bottled water that they transport all over the world and make huge profits off of.
Are Water Companies Putting Profits over People?
In November 2002, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted General Comment No. 15 on the right to water. Article 1 states that “The human right to water is indispensable for leading a life in human dignity. It is a prerequisite for the realisation of other human rights“. Comment No. 15 defined the right to water as the right of everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable and physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses.
The United Nations General Assembly explicitly recognised the human right to water and sanitation and acknowledged that clean drinking water and sanitation are essential to the realisation of all human rights on 28 July 2010, via Resolution 64/292. The Resolution “calls upon States and international organisations to provide financial resources, help capacity-building and technology transfer to help countries, in particular developing countries, to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all.†[Source: UN]
WHY then are huge corporations such as Nestlé still being allowed to basically steal water from communities around the world, markedly the most vulnerable and poor communities and make them buy back their own water in the form of bottled water.
There have been many petitions and media reports regarding this subject over the past few years, notably when it continued to drain water from the Sacramento aquifers during a massive drought earlier this year, as well as when it was accused of attempting to “drain†an Ontario town of its water in 2013.
Nestle, the world’s largest bottler of water, has now set its sights on Pakistan, where it is accused of sucking up the local water supply, destroying countries’ natural resources and rendering entire areas uninhabitable. Villagers in the small village of Bhati Dilwan have watched their water table sink hundreds of feet since the company has moved in, and children are getting ill from the foul-smelling sludge they’re forced to choke down.
Enough is Enough! Stop this from happening by investing in a mains water cooler or a bottled water cooler that provides you with fresh, filtered, chilled drinking water instead of supporting a corporation that is robbing poor people of their basic human rights in order to make a profit from selling bottled water!
