Honduras: News & Updates

In scouring the globe for cheap labor, US clothing brands are not merely opportunistic, they are also sometimes actively parasitic. Honduras is a case study: one in which US corporations and the US state department have worked together for decades to bring cheap garments to American consumers, framing job creation as a blessing for the Honduran economy while simultaneously engaging in political interventions that keep Honduran citizens poor. Among the manifold complexities of the global supply chain, a simple principle holds: corporations will always go where their costs – and their responsibilities – can be kept to an absolute minimum.

President-elect Xiomara Castro has not been sworn in yet, but her administration already faces its first major crisis. Just days before Xiomara Castro’s Jan. 27 inauguration as president of Honduras, her party Libre split over the congressional vote, as some members of National Congress aligned with her political opponents of the National Party and Liberal Party to support Jorge Cálix, a dissenting member of the Libre party, as president of the National Congress. It is a preview of the tumult that may await the transition out of 12 years of post-coup rule under the National Party, unlikely to willingly loosen its grip on power given that many prominent members face potential corruption or drug trafficking charge. As of Monday afternoon, Honduras still had two parallel Congressional leaderships, both under suspicion of illegality, a sign that does not bode well for the stability for the first days of Castro’s presidency.

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.