On January 21, PBI-Honduras tweeted: “From @PBIHonduras we congratulate @CntcTegucigalpa on its 37th anniversary. Almost four decades in defense of the rights of peasants and for an equitable distribution of the land.”

The CNTC has stated: “Since its founding in January 1985, the CNTC (National Union of Rural Workers) has worked for access to land and land titles, agricultural and forestry production, training for its members (at the Regional and National level), and including women and youth in the development of all activities.”

It adds: “The fight to achieve these goals has been difficult and complicated; we have even had to risk our lives for this cause as a consequence of the unequal system that does not have any political will for campesino families to have equal rights and to benefit from projects that could provide them with comprehensive development.”

And it further notes: “The arrival of the health emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has created more unfavorable conditions for our defenders of the land and territory due to the creation of emergency decrees and the increased isolation of our communities from society. This, combined with police and military control of civic life, has increased the criminalization of the struggle for access to land and it violates the human rights of our campesino brothers and sisters.”

PBI-Honduras has previously explained: “Of the 404 communities that form the National Union of Rural Workers, just 20% have titles to their lands. Many others have worked and lived on their lands for three or four decades and have spent 15 years awaiting the official recognition of their rights that never seems to arrive.”

Overall, land distribution in Honduras is highly unequal.

Just 5% of large-scale farmers control almost two-thirds of all cultivable land, while 71% of small-scale farmers have access to just 5% of it.

PBI-Honduras has noted that this UN Declaration recognizes key elements such as “the right to land, to natural resources and to food sovereignty, based on the principle of equality between men and women.”

PBI Honduras has been accompanying CNTC since May 2018.

Franklin Almendares, General Secretary of the CNTC.

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