“It’s not just that they kill us. They don’t even investigate who did it”. This is how LSettingsGBTQI+ community organisations in Honduras describe the situation in the country, where over 90% of hate crimes go unpunished.
2020 was a year defined not only by the questionable handling of the COVID-19 health emergency, but also by the impacts of hurricanes Eta and Iota. According to Centro de Estudios para la Democracia (CESPAD), these events, “have worsened food insecurity due to the lack of employment in the country, the depletion of food reserves, the increase in food prices, land and envi
Last November, Honduras underwent its third Universal Periodic Review (UPR). One of the country’s most-lauded advances was the creation of the National Protection Mechanism (the Mechanism), based on the National Protection Law, which was drafted as a result of the recommendations made during the previous UPR cycle in 2015.
“In the villages of Colón, we do not want to be part of the migrant caravans”. The Coordination of Popular Organisations of the Bajo Aguán (COPA) explains that several members of the Guapinol community have already been expelled from their homes as a result of the conflict with mining company Pinares Investments. Some of them left under death threats; others left over their fears for the future.
María Felicita López is an indigenous feminist leader from the Department of La Paz, Honduras and works with the Independent Indigenous Movement of La Paz, Honduras (MILPAH). For many years she has fought for human rights, women’s rights, and in defence of the environment in her native Department, La Paz.
“It’s going to keep raining over waterlogged soil. The land can’t handle so much water”. This is how the leader of the Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) described the situation in Honduras in a tweet on November 231. And she was right. The next morning, La Lima, a city in northern Honduras, flooded for the fourth time in a fortnight.
Andrea Regina Pineda is a Honduran lawyer commited to the defence of land rights and human rights with the Honduran Centre for the Promotion of Community Development (CEHPRODEC). In of October, he participated in a virtual tour in which she held meetings with various europenas authorities in the framework of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which will examine the human rights situation in Honduras during this month of November.
“Although it has always been a constant issue, violence against women has become another pandemic. It is overwhelming at every level”. This is the conviction with which Wendy Cruz, a peasant leader with Vía Campesina, describes the current situation. The data is on her side: in the month of April alone, when the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of COVID-19, over 10,000 women reported physical violence in Honduras, according to data from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
“When the COVID-19 crisis began, we met with communities and decided that we would be the ones to control who would enter and leave our communities” explains Sebastián Reyes, General Secretary of the Regional Board of the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC) in La Paz department, Honduras, and a resident of El Encinal.
In February, Honduran smallholder farmer organisations presented the “Emergency Law for the Reactivation of the Agricultural, Livestock and Forestry Sector to Combat Poverty” before the National Congress. The legislation aims to end the environmental, agrarian and food crisis in Honduras.