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PBI-Guatemala accompanies ceremony on 3rd anniversary of Hogar Seguro fire

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 9, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted, “Apart from the [International Women’s Day] march, yesterday we accompanied the ceremony for girls burned in the Virgin de la Assumption state home, which was organized by the members of the Network of Healers.”

Forty-one girls, who were 14 to 17 years of age, died in a fire at the Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asuncion shelter south-east of Guatemala City on March 8, 2017.

The Guardian has reported, “It has emerged that 56 girls had been locked inside a room measuring 6.8 metres by 7 metres as punishment for organising a protest the day before against cramped conditions and abuse by staff. More than 700 children lived at the home, which had capacity for 400-500.”

Al Jazeera adds, “Some of the victims [of the fire] had run away from home, fleeing abuse and sexual assault by relatives. But many faced more of the same inside the shelter. …For years, girls reported being raped and forced into prostitution inside the state-run facility, but their protests were ignored.”

To read more about the TZ’KAT Network of Ancestral Healers of Community Feminism from Ixmulew (the Network of Healers), please see PBI-Guatemala accompanies TZ’KAT who seek an end to violence against the land and women.

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied TZ’KAT since February 2018.

PBI advocacy tour observes asylum seeker immigration court hearings in San Antonio, Texas

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 5, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project posted that Javier Martinez Hernandez, the legal coordinator for the Saltillo Migrant Shelter, and Lena Weber, the PBI-Mexico advocacy coordinator, “went to immigration court [in San Antonio, Texas] to observe asylum seeker hearings under the MPP-Migrant Protection Protocols program.”

What is the MPP?

The MPP, the Migrant Protection Protocols, is more commonly referred to as the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy.

On March 4, The New York Times reported, “Since the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy was rolled out in January 2019, many of the estimated 60,000 migrants required to wait in Mexican border towns for their immigration hearings have been victimized by sexual assault, kidnap and torture.”

“On the Mexican side of the border, thousands of families are crammed into tent encampments, where unsanitary conditions and exposure to the elements have caused illness.”

What is the status of the MPP?

On March 6, The Hill reported, “A federal district court in California last April ruled that the policy violates U.S. immigration law and contravenes international human rights norms. The court ordered the administration to stop the practice along the entire U.S. border.”

The New York Times adds, “While insisting that a policy that has forced 60,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico violates United States law, a federal appeals court on Wednesday [March 4] granted the Trump administration’s request to keep the ‘Remain in Mexico’ restrictions in effect until March 11 for review by the Supreme Court.”

“If the Supreme Court does not grant the government’s request, the appeals court’s original decision will take effect on March 12 [in California and Arizona]. If the high court agrees to hear the case and grant another emergency stay, the policy, which has been in effect since January 2019, could remain in place for the foreseeable future.”

What is Canada’s position on the MPP?

Chris Rickerd of the American Civil Liberties Union has commented in the Toronto Star, “Canada, meanwhile, is renegotiating its Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S. Currently, Canada prevents many immigrants from applying for asylum after being in the U.S., but an expanded agreement would bar those who enter by land between official crossing points.”

He adds, “His government recently enacted a provision blocking asylum seekers who applied in the U.S. and then enter Canada from regular procedures, relegating them to an inadequate ‘pre-removal risk assessment’.”

Martinez and Weber will be hosted by PBI-Canada from March 14-18 for meetings in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal to discuss migrant rights with allies, lawyers, academics, parliamentarians and government officials.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies International Women’s Day march

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 9, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted, “We share photos of yesterday’s march for International Women’s Day in which women and girls were commemorated, victims of multiple violence, and the 56 girls, victims of the burning of the Virgen de la Asunción State Home.”

Femicide in Guatemala

The Guardian has reported, “Guatemala has the third highest rate of femicide in the world. Between 2014 and 2016, there were 2,264 violent deaths of women in Guatemala, of which 611 were formally reported as femicide. During the same period, 59 perpetrators were imprisoned.”

Horizons adds, “For Indigenous women in Guatemala, discrimination is double-faceted: they are marginalized not only due to their gender, but also for being Indigenous.” That article also notes that during the 36-year civil war in Guatemala, “More than 100,000 Indigenous women were victims of mass rape and forced into sexual slavery for the military.”

Hogar Seguro fire

Forty-one girls, who were 14 to 17 years of age, died in a fire at the Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asuncion shelter south-east of Guatemala City on March 8, 2017.

The Guardian has reported, “It has emerged that 56 girls had been locked inside a room measuring 6.8 metres by 7 metres as punishment for organising a protest the day before against cramped conditions and abuse by staff. More than 700 children lived at the home, which had capacity for 400-500.”

Al Jazeera adds, “Some of the victims [of the fire] had run away from home, fleeing abuse and sexual assault by relatives. But many faced more of the same inside the shelter. …For years, girls reported being raped and forced into prostitution inside the state-run facility, but their protests were ignored.”

Migration

The Intercept highlights, “In 2014, a landmark decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which has jurisdiction over all U.S. immigration courts, established that ‘married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship’ qualified as a particular social group that could be singled out for persecution.”

“The board underlined that the Guatemalan state was incapable of providing protection and could even be complicit in the violence against them. That decision, building off others that recognized violence against women as grounds for asylum, set a far-reaching precedent that has been especially important for women from Central America.”

In June 2018, The New York Times reported, “Attorney General Jeff Sessions [has] made it all but impossible for asylum seekers to gain entry into the United States by citing fears of domestic abuse or gang violence…”

In December 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) noted, “A federal court has struck down Trump administration policies that sought to gut asylum protections for immigrants fleeing domestic violence and gang brutality.”

But by December 2019, CNN reported, “The Justice Department defended a Trump administration decision that overturned asylum protections for victims of domestic violence and gang violence before an appeals court panel.”

Human rights groups are currently seeking in court to uphold the asylum protections.

More PBI-Guatemala photos from the International Women’s Day march:

PBI-Switzerland comments on United Nations Special Rapporteur’s report on Colombia

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 4, Peace Brigades International-Switzerland Advocacy Coordinator Kim-Mai Vu presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on the report made by UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Michel Forst on his November 20-December 3, 2018 visit to Colombia.

Forst’s report can be read here.

Kim-Mai’s formal presentation noted:

Madam president,

PBI and WILPF [Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom] salute, thank and support the report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of defenders, Michel Forst on his visit to Colombia, and we trust the prompt implementation by the Colombian State of his recommendations, as well as a genuine opening and collaboration with the United Nations System and with organized civil society, among others through a follow-up visit to the mandate.

We express high concern about the systematic violations against defenders and highlight the escalation of murders of women defenders, which according to OHCHR, increased by about 50% in 2019, compared to 2018. As well as those who are committed to the comprehensive implementation of the Peace Agreement and the defense of the land and the environment.

We call attention to humanitarian crises in different parts of the country; among them Urabá and Valle del Cauca, where ethnic and mestizo communities that contribute to the construction of memory and truth, are victims of threats and serious and multiple aggressions.

We are concerned about the news of illegal intelligence actions, carried out from military installations (among others), against defenders, groups of lawyers and magistrates of the high courts.

We insist on the importance of:

-address the structural causes of human rights violations and attacks on defenders,

-strengthen the mechanisms of the Peace Agreement that, if implemented in a comprehensive manner, would contribute to generating guarantees for defenders such as those provided for the effective dismantling of structures inheriting from paramilitaries (such as the National Security Guarantees Commission and the Special Unit research)

-implement the Comprehensive Guarantees Program for Women Leaders and Advocates urgently and in all territories

-clarify the possible persistence of links between illegal armed groups and political, economic and military sectors.

-strengthen politically and economically the UNP and collective prevention and protection measures (Decree 660 of 2018)

-finalize the Comprehensive Protection Public Policy for social leaders and human rights defenders, based on the protection mechanisms established in the Agreement and with full participation of civil society.

Thank you.

The video of Kim-Mai’s presentation can be seen here (item 49, starting at the 01:17:15 mark).

Manuel Pérez-Rocha on NAFTA, CAFTA and migrant rights

By
Brent Patterson
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Manuel Pérez-Rocha is an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington, DC and an Associate of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam.

The Washington Post has reported that US officials apprehended or deemed ‘inadmissible’ 36,679 migrants at the US-Mexico border in January 2020. The New York Times adds that nearly 400,000 were apprehended at the US border in the 2018 fiscal year. That article notes that figure was 1.6 million people in 2000.

Pérez-Rocha has commented:

“Most of these families trying to cross by land do so because they have no choice. They have been forced to migrate from Mexico or Honduras or Guatemala or El Salvador or other countries. These families have not chosen to come here because they like the USA lifestyle better than their own.

These are families whose livelihoods have been destroyed by decades of failed economic policies led by the United States and the local elites of those countries making their home countries dangerous and unlivable.

Unfettered free trade agreements, along with privatization of public services, are at the centre of the issue. Today’s immigration crisis started 24 years ago with NAFTA and the flooding of cheap US corn and other basic food staples into the Mexican economy that forced millions of small Mexican farmers out of the market. Those farmers and their families had no choice but to migrate. This was the first big wave of migration from Mexico.

Then the same failed policies of destroying national small-scale production in favour of large, corporate-led agricultural exporting schemes were applied to Central American countries with the CAFTA free trade agreement in 2006.

Failed economic policies have also plunged Mexico and Central America into dependence on extractive industries, like mining projects that push people off their lands. Now those families fleeing deteriorating and major new threats to the environment are being maliciously detained instead of being taken as refugees.”

Further commentary from Pérez-Rocha on the Institute for Policy Studies website at NAFTA Pushes Many Mexicans to Migrate.

Javier Martinez Hernandez is the legal coordinator for the Saltillo Migrant Shelter in the city of Saltillo in the northeastern state of Coahuila, Mexico.

The Shelter works to defend the rights of migrants, including US-bound Central American migrants traveling through Mexico. The Shelter, situated about 170 miles from the US border, assists about 12,000 to 14,000 people per year.

Martinez will be visiting Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal this coming March 14-18 to discuss the challenges faced by the Shelter.

PBI-Kenya celebrates International Women’s Day with #EachforEqual dialogue, honours four women human rights defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 8, the Peace Brigades International-Kenya Project posted, “Today, on #iwd2020, the WHRD Toolkit Organizers celebrated International Women’s Day in Mathare with an #EachforEqual dialogue.”

“We talked about feminism, youth and politics, culture and religion, and the law and your rights. What does #EachforEqual mean to you?”

PBI-Kenya adds, “Thank you to all that participated, our panelists, entertainment, moderators and MC, and of course all those who organized the event!”

PBI-Kenya has previously explained that the #EachforEqual campaign encourages us all to “challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.”

The four women human rights defenders that PBI-Kenya celebrated this International Women’s Day were: Grace Papa, Kate Wangui, Editar Ochieng, and Jecinter Agunja.

Grace Papa

We celebrate Grace Papa, a Women Human Rights Defender (WHRD) and a Community Health Worker (CHW) from Mukuru settlement. She has been involved in creating awareness on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), particularly by monitoring and documenting SGBV cases, reporting them, and referring SGBV victims to health centers.

Grace Papa has been key for her community on sexual and reproductive health matters, including family planning and HIV infection prevention and management.

Kate Wangui

We celebrate Kate Wangui, a women human rights defender from the Kibera settlement. Her desire is to see women and girls living a violence-free life, and those who violate others held accountable for their actions.

Kate strongly believes that violence against women and girls denies them the opportunity to realize their potential fully. She is a mentor to young girls and a go-to person on matters of sexual and gender-based violence.

Kate envisions a life where the rights of women and girls are respected and will not rest until equality is achieved. An equal world is a better world!

Editar Ochieng

We celebrate Editar Ochieng, a feminist activist who defends women rights globally participating actively in issues that affect women and girls.

Editar is an authentic, courageous and transformational leader. As a proud and radical intersectional feminist, she doesn’t apologize for challenging power dynamics and patriarchal systems that oppresses women systematically. Editar contested the members of national assembly in Kibera constituency in the 2019 by-election, being the first young woman changing the status quo. She didn’t manage in this first bid, but she never loses hope.

Editar is a happily independent mother who raises her children using feminist approach. Thank you Editar for being brave, outspoken and a go getter.

Jecinter Agunja

We celebrate Jecinter Agunja, a women human rights defender and a co-convener of the Coalition of Grassroots Human Defenders -Kenya CGHRD Kenya. Jecinter has been instrumental in defending the rights of women and girls in the Mathare settlement.

She works tirelessly to ensure that girls go to school, child marriages and unplanned pregnancies are reduced and women are economically empowered. She is truly a woman who leads by example.

For more from PBI-Kenya, please follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

PBI-Mexico accompanies International Women’s Day March in Chihuahua

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 8, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project posted that it had accompanied the #8M International Women’s Day march in Chihuahua.

PBI-Mexico adds, “According to data from the Women’s Human Rights Centre, during 2019, 219 women were killed in the state, which Chihuahua ranks third in cases of sexual abuse at the national level.”

“Chihuahua has the highest record of complaints of enforced disappearance of women between 2008 and 2018 across the country, according to the National Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations (Red TDT).”

PBI-Mexico highlights, “We support legitimate claims for a dignified existence free of violence for girls, adolescents and women.”

NBC notes, “From 1985 to 2014, there were 47,178 women killed in Mexico due to their gender, according to data compiled by RFK Human Rights and Center for Women’s Holistic Development, known by its acronym in Spanish, CEDIMAC, for a 2018 report.”

The Guardian adds, “Last year 1,006 of 3,825 murders [in Mexico] were officially classified as femicides – women or girls killed because of their gender. That compared to 426 in 2015, when authorities began counting such crimes.”

That article also notes that there will be “a potentially historic 24-hour women’s strike on Monday [March 9] in which upwards of 20 million Mexican women are expected to take part by staying at home.”

PBI accompanies Sandra Alarcon, the Human Rights Centre of Montaña de Tlachinolan

By
Brent Patterson
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On this International Women’s Day, Peace Brigades International highlights one of the women human rights defenders we accompany.

Sandra Alarcon is a 25-year-old human rights lawyer working for the Human Rights Centre of Montaña de Tlachinolan in Mexico.

PBI-Mexico has noted, “Tlachinollan works to defend and protect the collective rights of indigenous peoples; economic, social and cultural rights; civil and political rights; women’s rights; and especially the cases for which it provides legal representation. As a result, the center faces high levels of risk, as is demonstrated by the many threats and acts of harassment and aggression which Tlachinollan staff have faced over the years.”

PBI has accompanied Tlachinollan since late 2003.

Sandra says:

“I studied law. I have always been interested in working for change and that’s why I focused on human rights. I realised a long time ago that there are groups that are particularly vulnerable, who have nobody to defend them: women, indigenous people, migrants. If they don’t have a lawyer, they don’t have any rights. So that’s what brought me to be a human rights defender.

The case of Valentina Rosendo Cantú is an example of gender violence. Valentina is a Mepá indigenous woman. In 2002 she was sexually tortured by soldiers of the Mexican army. She was 17. She went to wash clothes in the river and soldiers approached and questioned her about guerrilla activity in the area. Then she was raped by at least eight soldiers. She tried to get medical attention and report the crime but when she accused the army, nobody would listen to her or help her. We can see the military impunity is so strong that she could not even get medical attention. Eventually she was seen at a private hospital.

We could not get justice for her at local nor at national level. So, we went to the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights and then the Interamerican court. In 2010 a verdict was issued against the Mexican state declaring that the armed forces sexually tortured Valentina Ruciendo. Mexico was declared responsible in an international arena. 16 years after the attack, in June 2018, we succeeded in getting a sentence for two of the aggressors. This was a historic moment because it is the first case that having gone to the Interamerican system, achieved a sentence at national level.

Valentina today is a human rights defender. She became one through circumstances, in her search for justice. She has worked for change not just in her own case but in solidarity with other movements and indigenous communities. She has been involved in various social struggles, mainly in raising awareness about cases of sexual torture, so that no one would suffer what she suffered. She has confronted all her adversity with dignity and courage and has been a model for other women.

What keeps me here in Guerrero is the possibility of making a difference, however small and that’s why I continue as a human rights worker. We work as a team. The people we work for, like Valentina, are my hope, my motive. The work of a human rights defender is hard and without their example, I wouldn’t continue. Their example and the possibility of supporting them is what makes me continue here.”

Interview by PBI-United Kingdom.

Photo by Manu Valcarce.

For more, please see this 90-second PBI video about Sandra. Please also see this 2-minute video about Valentina Rosendo Cantú.

PBI tour with Saltillo Migrant Shelter legal coordinator to discuss the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement

By
Brent Patterson
-

Peace Brigades International is hosting meetings in San Antonio, Austin and Washington for Javier Martinez Hernandez, the legal coordinator of the Saltillo Migrant Shelter.

Javier and Lena Weber, the PBI-Mexico advocacy coordinator, will then be in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal from March 14-18.

A key issue of their visit will be the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement.

The mandate letter from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Marco Mendicino, the present Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, calls on him to:

“Support the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness on irregular migration, including the new Border Enforcement Strategy and continued work with the United States to modernize the Safe Third Country Agreement.”

What is the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement?

The Canadian Press recently reported, “The deal largely bans people from seeking asylum at the Canada-U.S. border, on the grounds that both countries are safe and so people must seek refuge where they first arrive.”

Another recent Canadian Press articles notes, “In all of 2019, the RCMP stopped 16,503 people as they came into Canada from the U.S. using informal entry points [specifically to avoid being subject to the agreement so they can file an asylum claim].”

What is the Minister doing?

Sean Rehaag, the Director of the Centre for Refugee Studies, and Francisco Rico Martinez, the co-director of the FCJ Refugee Centre, have commented:

“Under the STCA, Canada continues to turn away Central American refugee claimants who present themselves at an official border crossing. Canada has also initiated discussions with the U.S. about expanding the STCA to cut off other routes into the country involving irregular border crossing.”

And the Canadian Press has reported that in 2019 Bill Blair, the Minister of Public Safety that Mendicino is mandated to work with, “is talking to lawmakers in the United States about closing a loophole in Canada’s border agreement with the U.S. — one seen as giving asylum-seekers reason to cross into Canada through fields and forests.”

Is the United States a safe country?

The basic assumption behind the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement (that was signed in 2002) is that the United States is a safe country.

Rehaag and Martinez have noted measures taken by the U.S. include: “forcibly separating asylum-seeking families, detaining children and adult asylum-seekers in inhumane conditions, militarizing the southern border, firing tear gas across the border at women and children asylum seekers, declaring that people facing gang violence or gender-based violence do not qualify for asylum, and, of course, building (or at least talking about building) a border wall.”

They add, “The refugee claim grant rates in 2018 for these countries were: El Salvador, 72 per cent; Guatemala, 64 per cent; and, Honduras, 57 per cent. So, when the Trump administration attacks this group of asylum seekers and denies them protection, they are attacking people who mostly meet Canada’s refugee definition.”

Should the Safe Third Country Agreement be suspended?

Jenny Kwan, the NDP Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Critic, has stated, “The only change that can be made to the STCA that respects the humanity of asylum seekers and allows Canada to live up to its domestic and international obligations is to suspend the agreement.”

And Green Party parliamentary leader Elizabeth May has commented, “Given the unpredictability and disarray of current immigration procedures in the U.S., the United States should no longer be designated as a ‘Safe Third Country’. People are fleeing the U.S. to come to Canada because they are no longer safe there and are in peril of being returned to countries where their lives could be threatened.”

Numerous other Canadian civil society organizations, including Amnesty International and the Canadian Association for Refugee Lawyers, have called for the agreement to be scrapped.

You can follow daily updates on this advocacy tour via PBI-Canada on Twitter and Facebook. The screen shot above is from this PBI video.

PBI highlights the Proyecto Integral Morelos and the Saltillo Migrant Shelter at the United Nations

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 6, Peace Brigades International-Switzerland Advocacy Coordinator Kim-Mai Vu made this presentation to the 43rd Regular Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva:

“Madame President, PBI notes with concern the ongoing attacks against persons who defend the land and the environment in Mexico.

In particular we would like to draw the Council’s attention to the case of the Morales comprehensive project which seeks to build a gas pipe in the states of Tlaxcala, Puebla and Morelos. The project which did not respect free, prior and informed consent has started through harassment, acts of criminalization, torture, stigmatization and forced eviction including repressive acts and the murder of the defender Samir Flores Soberanes.

At the border between the US and Mexico at least one out of every four migrants have suffered violence and there are 340 public complaints of violence, abduction and torture of asylum seekers. We regret the fact that refugees and migrant shelters which provide assistance to the most vulnerable groups are being systematically harassed.

The Saltillo Migrant Shelter has seen a four-fold increase in security incidents ranging from the murder of the migrant by federal police, defamation and intimidations as well as armed attacks.

That is why there is the need to have a public backing at the highest level for the work done by defenders, and there must be appropriate allocation of resources for the operations of the mechanism to protect human rights defenders and journalists.

Thank you very much.”

The UN Web TV video of her presentation can be seen here (from 02:27:30 to 0:2:28:55).

Peace Brigades International-Canada will be hosting Javier Martinez Hernandez, the legal coordinator with the Casa del Migrante Saltillo, along with PBI-Mexico advocacy coordinator Lena Weber for meetings with allies, lawyers and authorities in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal this coming March 14-18.

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