Honduras

In a region with high levels of poverty, gender discrimination and violence, trafficking of women continues unabated.

In a new paper, to be launched at the Discussion Forum on Trafficking of Women in Central America on 27 September, Central America Women's Network (CAWN) denounces the links between corporatocracy, militarisation, inequality and state connivance as factors at the root of the trafficking of women and girls within the region and out of it.

Following a brief presentation of the situation, we will screen 'The Lost Girls', a 20-minute documentary about trafficking of women in Honduras.

We would like to gather your thoughts and action ideas for CAWN's campaining.

It'll be a rather informal gathering but we are still asking for confirmation of attendance, preferably by 25 September, by emailing campaigns@cawn.org

The BBC reported last week that Honduran journalist and gay rights campaigner Erick Martinez was found dead two days after he went missing. The motive for the killing remains unclear, but rights groups say over 20 media workers have been killed in Honduras since 2009.

For the full report, see the BBC's website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17990638

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, reports how, earlier this month, 94 Democrat members of the US House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking her "to suspend US assistance to the Honduran military and police given the credible allegations of widespread, serious violations of human rights attributed to the security forces". But the US mainstream media have practically ignored their move, he adds. 

For the full story, read Weisbrot's piece on the Guardian website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/22/democrats...

A woman union leader has won a prestigious award for her struggle to support workers in Honduras supplying bananas to British stores for as little as £5 a day.

Yet more weather-related troubles for Central America. Reuters reports that Honduras and Nicaragua were hit by Tropical Storm Matthew on Friday, forcing hundreds of residents and tourists to evacuate and threatening damage to Central America's coffee and sugar crops.

Matthew, with winds of 45 mph (75 kph), moved inland over Nicaragua's Atlantic coast near the border with Honduras and is set to bring six to 10 inches (15 to 25 cm) of rain over the weekend.

Rains soaked Honduras' isolated Mosquitia coast, only accessible by boat or plane, where poor indigenous groups live in precarious wood houses on riverbanks or near the sea. Many people left their homes to wait out the storm in temporary shelters.

The Nicaragua Network says in its latest bulletin that heavy rains have damaged infrastructure, affected crops, and raised the risk of disease in many parts of the country. Honduras and El Salvador have also been hit by storms. Here's the full report (for more news, visit www.nicanet.org):

Humanitarian news website Reuters AlertNet reports that the number of Guatemalans going hungry is set to rise as the Central American nation faces more food shortages after devastating floods washed away crops.

Agatha, the first named storm of this year's Pacific hurricane season, lashed Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador last weekend, killing at least 180 people - most of them Guatemalan - and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

Strong winds and torrential rains in Guatemala, which recorded the highest rainfall in over 60 years, triggered landslides and severe flooding, washing away fields of maize, banana, sugar cane and coffee.

"We are facing a very difficult situation. Without doubt the food crisis is going to get worse and we can expect to see more cases of malnutrition," Rubelci Alvarado, programme manager with Save the Children, told AlertNet by phone from Guatemala City.

A press release from the office of Colin Burgon MP welcomes comments by Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant this week that the Honduran elections held on Sunday cannot be "valid" as they did not take place under elected President Manuel Zelaya. 

In a House of Commons debate on Tuesday December 1, Bryant said: “We made it clear before the elections that we believed that President Zelaya should not have been removed from power, and that if the elections were to be valid, they had to be engaged in under President Zelaya."

Bryant added: "Without his return before the end of his term, which is at the end of January, it will be impossible to believe that those were proper elections. However, we recognise and welcome the fact that the elections that did take place did so in a peaceful situation."

For the full text of the media statement, see below.

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Inter Press Service reports on how Brazil, Argentina and most other Latin American countries are refusing to accept the results of the November 29 presidential elections in Honduras, which were won by Porfirio Lobo, a conservative rancher and candidate of the de facto government. 

The condemnation of many leaders in the region clashes with US efforts to push for international recognition of the poll organised by the regime that has been in power since the June 28 coup.

For the full story: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49492