Statement by the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition

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  • We stand in solidarity with the struggle of OFRANEH and all Honduran leaders, peasant, Indigenous and Garifuna women 
  • We demand an immediate end to the violations of their rights and compliance with the international judgments of the IACHR

The Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRDIC) is a transnational, intersectional feminist coalition of WHRDs, feminists, trans and non-binary activists and organisations, and their allies.

On July 6, more than 200 police officers arrived in the Garifuna community of San Juan, Tela, to evict the ancestral people. During these events, five human rights defenders who are members of the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH) were arbitrarily detained, including the WHRD Sara Abigail Acosta. Thanks to the outcry from the Garifuna communities and national and international solidarity, the police left the area hours later, and although they continue to be criminalized, the members of OFRANEH were released.

Police action in the community was particularly violent. They used tear gas, fired lethal ammunition, and issued threats, which plunged the population into a climate of terror and resulted in numerous injuries, with children and pregnant women being particularly affected. These actions also violate the rights recognized by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) and the judgment it issued in 2023 in favor of the people of San Juan, in which it recognizes the right to collective property and the ancestral rights of the Garifuna people over that territory.

This eviction and another one in Choluteca on June 28 took place in the context of the entry into force of the “Law to Strengthen Agribusiness, Energy Projects, Tourism, Livestock, and Small-Scale Farmers,” which sanctions the dispossession of ancestral territories and violates the fundamental rights of Indigenous and Garífuna peoples.

We at Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition recognize the courage and importance of the women leaders and defenders who, through OFRANEH and within peasant, Indigenous, and Garifuna communities, are defending their right to land and territory in Honduras in such a hostile environment.

We stand in solidarity with their struggle, their commitment to a life of dignity, to reclaiming land that has been monopolized for predatory crops such as the African oil palm, and to planting crops that heal, care for the land, and sustain life itself.

We warn of the risks they face by exposing the actions of powerful groups that impose racist policies of dispossession and extermination, prioritizing the interests of major national and international economic powers over social, environmental, territorial, collective, and community interests.

We at Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition condemn the actions of the Honduran government and urge the authorities to immediately cease the evictions and the criminalization of Sara Abigail Acosta and other defenders of land and territory, as well as to comply with the judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and guarantee the rights of the ancestral Garifuna communities.