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.
Today, September 20, 2019, the environment takes center stage as people across the world join in a Global Climate Strike, urging governments and the private sector to take concrete action in order to avoid further deterioration of our climate and the manifold human rights impacts that this would imply.
“I think Peace Brigades plays a key role in saving the lives of those of us who do not believe in guns, those of us who do work that is frowned upon in this country. It is a guarantee for daily life; I feel very safe when I’m with Peace Brigades, they are like guardian angels to me. I really feel that the daily accompaniment lets me continue to pursue my work the way I do it; I feel much calmer.”
- Claudia Julieta Duque, investigative journalist
On April 16th, the U.N. Security Council warned that “the Colombian peace process stands today at a critical juncture.” In his remarks before the Security Council, U.S.
March 19, 2019
In the first four months of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s term, which began on December 1, 2018, at least seventeen human rights defenders and journalists were murdered, an increase over last year’s rate. If killings continue at this rate, fifty-two defenders and journalists will be dead by the end of 2019.
Attacks on human rights defenders, journalists, and others exercising their right to free speech in Honduras have increased in the first months of 2019. Below are some selected incidents illustrating a trend toward a continued closing of space for dissent.
February 25, 2019
Despite multiple alerts, illegal armed actors continue to fight for control of the territory in the Jiguamiandó and Curbaradó river basin areas (in the region of Urabá in northwest Colombia), resulting in ongoing violence and killings, placing the Afro-Colombian, mixed-ethnicity and indigenous communities in the region at serious risk and affecting their physical and emotional security and integrity.
February 20, 2019
On February 12th, between 07:00 and 07:40 am, human rights defender Obtilia Eugenio Manuel and her companion Hilario Cornelio Castro disappeared. They were last seen in the town of Tierra Colorada in Guerrero, Mexico. Obtilia works for the Organization of Me Phaa Indigenous People and in years past has received accompaniment from PBI. She is a beneficiary of provisional measures granted by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, but the measures were not being adequately implemented.