Stay Informed!

Josephs bill that would divest Pa. funds from companies supporting Darfur genocide is sent to full House

HARRISBURG, June 22 -- This week the House State Government Committee unanimously reported out state Rep. Babette Josephs' legislation that would divest state funds from certain private business entities doing business with the government of Sudan.

The Sudanese government has been sponsoring ethnic cleansing of non-Arab Darfurians since February 2003. To date, more than 400,000 Darfurian civilians have been killed, and millions more have been displaced and are reliant on humanitarian aid. Yet the international community has failed to act.

"Targeted divestment is an effective way of showing that Pennsylvania will not support genocide," said Josephs, D-Phila., chair of the State Government Committee. "It can help bring an end to the atrocities in Darfur by placing much-needed economic pressure on the Sudanese government."

Josephs' legislation (H.B. 1140) features an approach called the targeted divestment model, which calls for the withholding of Pennsylvania investment dollars from companies that are directly or indirectly helping the Sudanese government perpetuate genocide. Only if a company refuses to change its behavior in response to shareholder engagement would the divestment model call for divestment from that company. Similar divestments helped to bring about the end of apartheid in South Africa.

Josephs' bill is the result of her work with the Sudan Divestment Task Force to develop a targeted divestment model for the Commonwealth. The Sudan Divestment Task Force is the same non-profit organization the city of Pittsburgh used. Other cities, including Philadelphia and Providence, R.I., 30 colleges and universities, as well as New York, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Texas, Maine, New Jersey and Oregon, all have taken steps to divest from companies doing business in the African nation.

The bill now heads to the full House of Representatives for consideration.