41 to the rights and needs of, and challenges faced by, these vulnerable and marginalized groups in order to ensure that they do not contribute to, or exacerbate, such discrimination. In sum, the processes for assessing human rights impact should be systematic so that the various elements add up to a coherent overview of actual and potential human rights impact associated with an enterprise’s activities and relationships and can accurately inform the subsequent steps in the due diligence process. Q 38. How far afield should an enterprise look when assessing human rights impact? The purpose of assessing impact is to identify any adverse impact in which an enterprise might be involved. As set out in Guiding Principle 13, this includes impact it may cause or contribute to through its own activities, and impact to which it has not contributed, but which is linked to its operations, products or services by a business relationship. Therefore, when assessing actual and potential human rights impact, an enterprise should look both at its own activities and at its business relationships. Q 39. What does it mean to assess the impact that occurs through an enterprise’s own activities? An enterprise may either cause or contribute to an adverse human rights impact through its own activities. It may contribute to an impact, for example, if it keeps employees at work until late at night in an area where it is unsafe for women to walk home after dark, and some women are subsequently attacked going home; or if it lends vehicles to security forces that use them to travel to local villages and commit atrocities. Q 40. What does it mean to assess the impact in which an enterprise is involved as a result of business relationships? Guiding Principle 18 is not intended to require enterprises to assess the human rights record of every entity with which they have a relationship. It is about assessing the risk that those entities may harm human rights when acting in connection with the enterprise’s own operations, products or services. For instance, if an enterprise’s facilities will be protected by State security forces, the enterprise is not being asked to assess the general human rights