For more than a decade, totonaca indigenous communities in the Sierra Norte de Puebla have fought for the survival of their traditions and the defense of their territory. In January of this year, they won an important legal battle against the building of a hydroelectric dam with the local municipality revoking the permits for Puebla 1 to be built, due to illegal activities in the administrative processes.
Although the right to migrate is consecrated in article 13 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, it continues to be violated by different actors.
In Mexico, human rights defenders defend migrants by giving them humanitarian, legal and psychological attention which is often the only support migrants receive as they pass through the country that shares a border with the USA; the most transited border in the world.
The accompaniment provided by PBI in 2018 benefited to more than 50 civil society organisations and 341 defenders, of whom 65% were women. The work carried out by these people benefits at least 146,351 people and promotes human rights across the whole country.
2018 has been a year of struggle, of resistance, and of extraordinary bravery from those who, on a daily basis, put their lives at risk to defend human rights.
Atoyac de Álvarez is a municipality in the State of Guerrero between the Sierra Madre del Sur and the Costa Grande, and as with many regions in Latin America, its veins remain open. It´s history, throughout the so-called "Dirty War" in the 70s, is paradigmatic of the history of State violence in Mexico: human rights violations through the militarisation of the area, forced disappearances and killings. If democracy fears remembering, and we become ill with amnesia, family members of disappeared people have incessantly sought their mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sist
After two decades of struggle, the Rarámuri community of Choréachi in the Sierra Tarahumara mountain range achieved an important sentence in late 2018. The sentence dictates that the boundaries delineating their ancestral territory must be respected and that the logging permits that were illegally granted to a non-indigenous agrarian community, are invalid.
During the Universal Periodic Review of Mexico in November 2018, 38 countries made recommendations relating to human rights defenders. From these, 19 requested the strengthening of the Federal Protection Mechanism for Human Rights De
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office after campaigning on a platform focused heavily on combating corruption and insecurity and bringing peace and reconciliation to the Mexican people.
This report focuses on how the new government can approach an important aspect of this endeavor: creating a safer and more enabling environment for journalists and human rights defenders to carry out their important work.
El Presidente de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, asumió el cargo tras encabezar una campaña electoral enfocada en gran medida en el combate a la corrupción y la inseguridad, y en la pacificación y reconciliación para el pueblo mexicano. Este informe se centra en cómo el nuevo gobierno puede abordar un aspecto importante de este esfuerzo: crear un entorno más seguro y propicio para que periodistas y personas defensoras de los derechos humanos puedan realizar su importante trabajo.
Author: Aluna Acompañamiento Psicosocial
Because of their work in defense of human rights, women human rights defenders challenge the traditional gender roles of the patriarchal society that keeps women in the domestic sphere. Consequently, women human rights defenders often suffer from serious public defamation campaigns that aim to damage their reputation, accusing them, among others, of neglecting their family or of being in search of sexual partners. In addition, women human rights defenders are often targets of attacks, threats and harassment, also of a sexual nature.
