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Violent organized crime continues to disrupt Honduran society and push many people to leave the country. Journalists; environmental activists; human rights defenders; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals; and people with disabilities are among the groups targeted for violence. Impunity remains the norm. Efforts to reform public security institutions have stalled. Marred by corruption and abuse, the judiciary and police remain largely ineffective. This is the Human Rights Watch 2022 World Report for Honduras.
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Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas, who dared to overthrow a US-backed dictatorship and choose their own allies to defend their revolution, represent a direct threat to the Monroe Doctrine. And now Ortega, who has been in office since 2007 and was re-elected again as president in a landslide victory in November, has thrown down another gauntlet to challenge American domination. One of the biggest fears of the US, and one of the greatest threats to the viability of the antiquated Monroe Doctrine, is that Ortega will partner with China to build a major shipping canal which would link Nicaragua’s Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
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On September 16, 2021, a military helicopter appeared and began firing—seemingly indiscriminately—from above. The unsuspecting residents of Ibans, a small Afro-Indigenous community on the northeastern coast of Honduras, ran for cover from the stream of bullets raining down. The authorities, including DEA, initially tried to cover up the Ahuas incident and subsequently to justify it as a matter of security: they alleged that the commercial passenger boat was involved in trafficking drugs and that it opened fire on the military helicopter. Illicit drugs do transit parts of this region in Honduras, and much of the rest of it. In fact, since the Ahuas massacre, cocaine transit through the region has remained, on average, unchanged despite ongoing U.S.-funded enforcement. In this context, these extrajudicial killings have come to represent an ongoing counter-narcotics operation that serves not to stop illegal drug trafficking, but rather to perpetuate violence and impunity through the militarization of Indigenous territories in Honduras. The cost of this overzealous response and intentional neglect can be seen in the lives of Miskitu, Tawhaka, Garifuna, and other Indigenous Peoples.
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Voces Unidas is one of many organizations working with residents of border towns to dismantle the physical and electronic walls that upend their lives. Local and national migrants’ rights groups are determined to weaken the government’s access to databases and other technologies used to surveil migrants and undocumented immigrants, and they are pressuring elected officials to stop funding such efforts. As extreme weather, droughts, and other effects of a warming world become the norm, the number of climate refugees is expected to skyrocket. And though droughts, floods, and other climate disasters lead farmers in places like Guatemala to move, their migration occurs within a larger context in which U.S. foreign policy plays a key role.
News Article

According to the International Labour Organization there are more than 40 million victims of human trafficking and forced labor around the world today, including children. This is a hard truth that the Fair Trade movement is fighting to change.

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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.

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Senate Democrats in Washington on Monday asked the Biden administration to grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) be extended to migrants of four Central American countries from where most are migrating to the U.S. Southwest border. The request was made to re-designate TPS for migrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. The senators cited worsening humanitarian conditions across Central America, as well as rising coronavirus cases and multiple natural disasters.

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