Gender & Sexual Solidarity: News & Updates

Colombia’s constitutional court voted Monday to decriminalize abortion in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, a transformative shift for the majority-Catholic country and the latest sign of a turning tide in Latin America. The ruling makes Colombia the third large country in the region to decriminalize the procedure in slightly more than a year, after Mexico and Argentina, a development that appeared unlikely just a few years ago. Abortion rights activists said it could fuel further gains for abortion rights in the region. Since 2006, the procedure has been permitted in Colombia in cases of rape, nonviable pregnancy and when the life or health of the mother was in danger. At the time, those rules positioned the country as a regional leader in abortion rights. But between 2006 and 2020, the court heard, nearly 3,000 people were prosecuted for having an abortion. More than 90 groups filed a lawsuit in September 2020, arguing that the criminalization of abortion exacerbates the stigma around the procedure and creates barriers to access, even for patients who qualify under the exemptions.

El Salvador has released another woman imprisoned for aggravated homicide who after suffering an obstetric emergency was accused of aborting her pregnancy in a country where abortion under any circumstances is banned. The woman, who activists helping her identified only as Elsy, had served more than a decade of a 30-year sentence. She was the fifth woman released before completion of her sentence since late December of last year. In the past 20 years, El Salvador has prosecuted 181 women who suffered obstetric emergencies. A local rights organization has succeeded in freeing 61 of them since 2009.

For nearly 30 years, the town of El Carmen de Bolivar and the surrounding region of Montes de María were infamous for violence perpetrated against LGBTQ+ individuals, targeted at one time or another over the country’s long civil war by rightwing paramilitaries, leftwing guerrillas, government soldiers and the police. In 1999, Helicopters were dropping pamphlets with a warning to the LGBTQ+ society to leave town. Now, Many of those who left are returning as their home has become much safer. “It gives me a lot of joy to see how we have been able to achieve so much in a place that people thought was impossible," Tito, leader of a folk dance group, says.

LGBTQ+ people in Central America are often at heightened risk of violence and discrimination, and thousands have fled their home countries in search of international protection. While the United States remains a major destination for displaced LGBTQ+ people, increasingly, more and more LGBTQ+ people on the move are heading to countries within the region to seek protection. Protection systems in the region are improving but need strengthening. LGBTQ+-led organizations in Central America are often leaders in these systems, providing protection, support, and advocacy for and on behalf of LGBTQ+ people in their countries of origin, while on the move, and in their destination countries. In the Fall of 2021, Refugees International and IRCA CASABIERTA, a Costa Rica-based NGO that is led by and provides services to LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and refugees, conducted fifteen consultation meetings with Central American NGOs in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Panama that are led by and provide services to LGBTQ+ people. The meetings aimed to discuss the challenges that LGBTQ+-led organizations face in their respective countries in providing services to LGBTQ+ people.

Women have been at the forefront of struggle in Honduras throughout its history, from fighting dictatorships to challenging political corruption to seeking civil improvements such as gender parity in politics and education. The recent presidential election of Xiomara Castro Sarmiento Zelaya of the Libertad and Refundación (Libre) party has exhilarated women from various sectors and in the diaspora. And as the first woman president, In her campaign and platform, Castro embraced gender rights and sought to address femicides and structural violence against women and LGBTI communities—issues ignored in previous campaigns. But the most far-reaching policy for women is Castro’s support of the right to sexual and reproductive rights. Now, 67 years after women won the right to vote, Xiomara Castro is promising to be a president of the people and to restore Honduras’s constitutionality and rule of law. It promises to be a new era for women, of all races and ethnicities, and LGBTI communities.

Review of the Year 2021 The past year was a challenging year for FOR Peace Presence and Colombia. Let's look back on the year together.