This is unbelievable. The UK government is handing over yet another contract to global multinational G4S. This time to run its discrimination helpline.

You read that right. G4S stands accused of human rights abuses all over the world. Of assaulting children in UK & US young offenders’ units, of torturing prisoners in South Africa, of unlawfully killing Jimmy Mubenga - a man who was being deported to Angola. 

Earlier this year the UK government’s own corporate watchdog criticised G4S for failing to address human rights violations in its operations in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. 

And now that same government wants G4S to run a helpline to support those who have experienced discrimination.

Will you join nearly 60,000 UK SumOfUS members and sign our petition telling the new UK minister for women and equalities that G4S shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near sensitive contracts like this one?

The Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) is a lifeline for people facing discrimination on grounds including disability, race or gender. It’s there to support people who have, for example, been refused housing because of their race, or been made redundant because of their age or disability. 

Now the UK government is handing the service over to a company with a dire track record when it comes to human rights -- a company that routinely puts private profits over public safety wherever it operates. The catalogue of G4S’s terrible record is long. It has abused, assaulted and killed. 

In Australia, an Aboriginal elder - Mr Ward - died from heatstroke after being held in a poorly maintained G4S prison van. He was ‘cooked to death’ when left in the security pod of a van for over three hours in 40 degree head. The van had no air-conditioning, malfunctioning CCTV, and a ‘virtually useless’ panic button. And G4S had no policies requiring checks on prisoner welfare.

Recently in the UK the government had to step in after G4S staff were found to be abusing children in a young offender’s unit. Meanwhile in the US a grand jury report report branded a G4S run juvenile detention centre ‘a disgrace to the state of Florida’ for its “dilapidated buildings, unclean sanitary facilities, undertrained and poorly equipped staff and failure to report incidents of children escaping.”

G4S thinks it can hide the full horror of its discrimination, misconduct and mismanagement and keep being awarded government contracts across the globe. But if we stand together we can put a stop to it.

The helpline used to be run by an independent body called the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), but the government outsourced it in 2012. Even a recent parliamentary review said that outsourcing has failed and recommended returning it to the EHRC. But the UK government ignored that advice -- and decided to award the contract to G4S.

The decision is a kick in the teeth to everyone who faces disability, race or gender discrimination. We’ve come together before to stop the government from outsourcing essential public services. Let’s speak up again now and stop G4S from being given yet another government contract.