Rights Action
February 4, 2020
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Fact Sheet: Why Hondurans Are Forced to Flee
January 28, 2020, by Karen Spring, Honduras Solidarity Network
(For more information about #DontLookAway campaign:
RAICES (Refugee and Immigration Center and Legal Services), https://www.raicestexas.org/
This fact sheet was compiled to provide a statistical context to the urgent crisis in Honduras that is forcing Hondurans to flee as refugees to neighbouring countries and to the U.S. border. It attempts to show the increasingly high cost of living that affect the daily lives and economic situations of millions of Honduran families. It provides a summary of the minimum wage and underemployment in the country for the small group of Hondurans that are able to find work but that suffer horrendous working conditions when their employers and the Honduran government do not abide by or enforce the labor code.
This fact sheet also provides a few statistics related to the security situation in the country by looking at the homicide rate, the impunity rate, and the number of massacres that have occurred in the last few years.
There is also a section about corruption and drug trafficking with details on involvement of government officials and Congressional representatives in corruption cases and drug trafficking.
The final section includes statistics related to human rights issues and targeted populations such as students, Afro-indigenous Garifuna people, journalists, lawyers, and more.
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Why do 10s of thousands of Hondurans & Guatemalans flee home and country, year after year?
The U.S. and Canadian governments, the World Bank and global businesses and investors (hydro-electric dams, mining, African palm, sugar cane and fruit production, garment “sweatshop” factors, tourism, etc.) maintain profitable relations with anti-democratic, corrupt, repressive governments in Honduras and Guatemala, participating in or benefitting from exploitation and repression, environmental harms and human rights violations, corruption and impunity.
The U.S., Canada and “international community” help keep in place the very regimes and conditions that force Hondurans and Guatemalans to flee their countries, every year, decade after decade. There is no political or legal oversight or accountability in the U.S. and Canada for our complicity in Guatemala and Honduras’ nightmare.
Rights Action (U.S. & Canada)
Since 1995, Rights Action funds human rights, environment and territory defense struggles and projects in Guatemala and Honduras; funds victims of repression and human rights violations, health harms and natural disasters; works to hold accountable the U.S. and Canadian governments, multi-national companies, investors and banks (World Bank, etc.) that help cause and profit from repression and human rights violations, environmental harms and forced evictions, corruption and impunity in Honduras and Guatemala.
Get Informed / Get Involved
Act – Stir up the pot – Chip away
Keep sending copies of Rights Action information (and that of other solidarity groups/ NGOs) to family, friends and networks, politicians and media – always asking the question as to why our governments, companies and investment firms benefit from and turn a blind eye to poverty, repression and violence, environmental and health harms that caused the forced migrancy / refugee crisis in Guatemala and Honduras.
Other solidarity/ NGO groups in U.S. and Canada
Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)
To support our land, human rights and environmental defender partner groups in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
- U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
- Canada: (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
