Honduras: Women reaffirm their demands for a fairer and more egalitarian society

This March 8th, 2024, in Honduras, we commemorate and vindicate the struggle of millions of women around the world. We take to the streets to claim our role in society on equal terms with men, to celebrate the rights already won, and highlight what remains to be won.

On this International Working Women’s Day, the organizations that make up the November 25th Platform reaffirm our demands and commitments towards a fairer and more egalitarian society. Women comprise 53.3% of the total population in Honduras; therefore, we are not a sector, but the majority of inhabitants of this country.

Honduran women face multiple discriminations, mainly due to the implementation of neoliberal, capitalist, and patriarchal models. These have been deepened in the 12 years of dictatorship through the extractivist policy, which has led to the installation of national and transnational mining and hydroelectric companies, dispossessing indigenous peoples of their territories and criminalizing and prosecuting the defenders of common resources. Additionally, 38.2% of households in Honduras are headed by women, leaving them in vulnerable positions.

Today, we condemn anti-rights groups that have demonized the promotion of women’s rights, placing them at greater risk. In the country, we have been experiencing high rates of domestic violence, where, according to the courts, an annual average of 18,000 cases is reported. There are also high rates of teenage pregnancies, with more than 20,000 girls and young women between 10 and 19 years becoming mothers annually. Most of these pregnancies have their origin in rape, a widespread reality that reproduces poverty and turns the country into “a paradise” for abusers and pedophiles. Therefore, it is urgent to implement comprehensive sexual education and ensure free access to contraceptive methods and ECPs in public health centers.

Given the situation of multiple violence and discrimination that women suffer, we remind the political class of this country that there is no democracy if Honduran women are not guaranteed their economic, social, and political rights. We demand legislation without myths or fundamentalist dogmas that put Honduran women in greater discrimination and vulnerability. There are thousands of destroyed lives that no one is there to give them a hand of relief; it is urgent for the State to guarantee us to live free from all kinds of violence and provide opportunities to live with dignity.

We are at a critical point, where the violation of women’s rights continues to be a painful reality. However, we stand firm in a permanent struggle for our rights.

WE DEMAND, WE DO NOT ASK:

• Immediate and effective response to femicides, with concrete measures to eradicate impunity. We will not allow the country to become a feminicidal state.
• Compliance with the General Budget Provisions that include the gender perspective by 2024.
• Fiscal policy with a gender perspective that considers comprehensive care so that women do not continue to be overburdened with care work. Affirmative actions should be implemented, both in public income and expenditure, aimed at ensuring sufficient resources to protect our rights.
• Ratification of ILO Convention 189 for domestic workers, for the dignification of domestic and care work, essential for sustaining life.
• The immediate submission of the proposed Comprehensive Law against Violence against Women by President Xiomara Castro and its approval in the National Congress, in the face of the wave of murders. We cannot stand idly by.
• Curricular reform that includes sex education and non-violence against women and girls.
• We demand a National Strategy for the Eradication of Femicide, which includes the reform of the weapons law, a program for the registration and control of weapons, as well as a general disarmament of unregistered weapons. 68.2% of the victims died from firearms.
• Reforms to the Penal Code for crimes of violence against women and femicide, including increased penalties, among others.
• Ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which is already before the National Congress.
• An electoral law that includes effective mechanisms for women to reach decision-making spaces with parity. Equality in results or electoral quotient for women should be ensured, as well as the shielding of the 15% allocation aimed at strengthening the leadership of women politicians and a protective legal framework against political violence against women.
• We, rural women, demand urgent discussions on an Agricultural Development Policy for food sovereignty with a gender focus, to enable families and women in rural areas to generate community development and dignify their lives.
• We call on the Commission for Agrarian Security and Access to Land, the Supreme Court, and the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate the prosecution of Honduran peasant women and men.
• Rural women demand access to land and seed capital to develop their productive and economic initiatives. Agricultural institutions must respond and not make excuses to guarantee human rights.

This post is also available in Español.