Women and minority rights activists around the world are working to create positive change in their communities. Women human rights defenders face many of the same challenges as their male counterparts. However, many face additional obstacles and threats because they challenge the status quo twice over – through their work and by challenging (by their very existence) accepted norms, traditions, perceptions and stereotypes about femininity, sexual orientation and the role and status of women in society. As a result, they are vulnerable to threats, stigma, rejection by family and community, and violence.
Photo of Lucía Ixchíu from Latin America Bureau by Eliana Lafone.
Lucía Ixchíu describes herself as: “K’iche, tree of the Forest, anti-patriarchal, cultural manager, journalist and Indigenous storyteller, architect (Mayan in exile).”
Following a year-long project involving consultations with human rights defenders, Peace Brigades International joined a coalition of human rights organizations to release the Declaration +25, a landmark document systematizing relevant developments in regional and international human rights law and standards of the last 25 years.
Join us for a discussion with LGBTQIA+ human rights defenders from Guatemala, Honduras, and Indonesia on the current challenges they face and ways the international community might support their work & commitment.
Christopher Castillo, General Coordinator of ARCAH, is leading the movement in Honduras against so-called Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs). These zones, which operate as independent territories, not subject to Honduran law, threaten to envelop vast swathes of Honduras; up to 35 percent of the country could be made into such zones.
For several years, a small coalition of groups - including Peace Brigades International - had been planning to host Jani Silva, perhaps the most threatened woman in Colombia’s Amazon rainforest.
Jani has been an outspoken environmental defender for years, challenging the expansion of oil operations and other threats to the Amazon Pearl, a biodiverse rainforest region along the Colombia-Ecuador border. She has received innumerable death threats of different varieties, and seen several of her fellow defenders killed for their activism as recently as late 2023.
PBI-Honduras has posted: “The Corruption Sentencing Court has just convicted 3 of the 6 former public officials accused in the ‘Fraud on Gualcarque’ case. We are observing the @COPINHHONDURAS [Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations in Honduras] sit-in, which requested a conviction for the 6 accused people.”
On April 4 (at 12:05 pm ET), PBI-Colombia posted: “#Rights For Women Seekers At this moment accompanying the @nydia_erika Foundation in the last Senate debate on the draft Law for the Protection of Women Searchers of the #Disappeared.”
On March 8, 2024, PBI-accompanied groups around the world mobilized to commemorate International Women’s Day, now in its 114th year. Women human rights defenders advocate and lobby for human rights within their community and are not only targeted for their activism, but also face gender-specific rights violations. At Peace Brigades International, we stand alongside these women, supporting them to continue their vital work even amidst repression and violence.
On August 1, PBI-Mexico tweeted: