THE NATIONAL NETWORK OF WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS IN HONDURAS AND THE MESOAMERICAN INITIATIVE OF WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS ARE ORGANIZING AN INTERNATIONAL MISSION OF SOLIDARITY AND ACCOMPANIMENT WITH WOMEN DEFENDERS IN HONDURAS, to share feminist solidarity in a way that helps them to strengthen their action, make their struggles visible, and promote international solidarity.
Mesoamerica, November 2018
Honduras is going through an alarming intensification of the crisis of human rights violations that began with the coup d'etat of 2009, including the right to defend rights. Women defenders are unquestionably the most affected in this situation where invisibility marks the different kinds of violence they experience as the product of a patriarchal, misogynous culture that affects their everyday lives, homes, intimate relations, organizations, communities and other spaces.
After the illegal elections of November 2017, and the voter fraud carried out in the following days, Honduran people fed up with governments that have looted their public resources and expropriated common property, especially that of the indigenous populations, and have maintained absolute control over formal institutions, poured out into the streets in one peaceful demonstration after another as part of a citizen uprising unprecedented in contemporary Honduran history. The Juan Orlando Hernández administration, however, responded with the incommensurate use of force, a state of siege, persecution, and direct repression against any mobilization of the opposition. By the beginning of March, the murders of 38 persons had been registered, two of whom were women, and more than 100 persons displaced by political persecution, as well as hundreds of women defenders threatened and pursued, including two who had court proceedings reopened against them. Many of the criminalized defenders belong to or are related to the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras, which has maintained ongoing accompaniment and defense of many of the persecuted and criminalized defenders.
In this regressive human rights situation, the Network, along with the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders to which it belongs, believe that it is essential to strengthen international solidarity with Honduran women human rights defenders in the territories. This is why it is proposing a tour of feminist women defenders from the Mesoamerican region and from other countries who will VISIT HONDURAS TO FOSTER DIFFERENT SOLIDARITY ACTIONS, AND MOST OF ALL, TO INITIATE ACTIONS OF FEMINIST ENCOUNTER AND EMBRACE WITH WOMEN DEFENDERS IN THE RURAL COMMUNITIES OF HONDURAS. The Mission will be organized by IM-Defensoras and received in the country by the NATIONAL NETWORK OF WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS IN HONDURAS. It will be held from January 20 – 25, 2019. The invitation goes out to Mesoamerican defenders, feminist allied organizations and communicators, foundations and agencies of cooperation, and international human rights organizations.
The objectives of the Mission are:
- To accompany and extend feminist solidarity to women defenders in Honduras as a way to help strengthen their actions, lend visibility to their struggles and promote international solidarity.
- To carry out interchanges among women defenders that contribute to the construction of political thinking on Comprehensive Feminist Protection.
- To develop actions of communication and advocacy at national, regional and international levels in order to make visible the conditions of actions for women human rights defenders and broaden regional and international support networks for women defenders in Honduras.
Planned activities:
- Meetings with WOMEN DEFENDERS, their social organizations and human rights movements.
- Meetings with representatives of international human rights institutions in the country.
- Visits to the territories.
- Press conferences and daily preparation and dissemination of press statements for national and international news media.
To be concrete:
We wish to invite Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras to participate in the International Mission of Solidarity and Accompaniment.
To make this proposal viable, we wish to solicit help in seeking funds for financing international transportation costs to Honduras for designated representatives of the Mission; all expenses for the support of the activities of local organizers will be covered by the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders.
Attached you will find the registration form, which should be filled out and sent to these e-mail addresses: redefensorashn@gmail.com , teresa.boedo@im-defensoras.org , nubia.gonzalez@im-defensoras.org The registration period is open until December 20, 2018.
We thank you in advance for your support and solidarity.