New challenges in a changing world
Kenyan HRDs protect their water tanks from police violence
Garifuna defenders protest against recent enforced disappearances in their communities
A turbulent year for human rights defenders.
Global trends in repression and violence towards human rights defenders continue to escalate. Protection measures are still lacking and actively being eroded in some of the most dangerous countries around the world.
Land and environmental rights continue to be the most dangerous rights to defend, with nearly half of the 401 human rights defenders killed in 2022 working on these issues. Tragically, this amounts to one every two days.
International analysis coincides with what PBI is observing on the ground: through arrest, detention, administrative sanctions and the misuse of policy and law, vested interests are colluding to criminalise those who stand up for their rights with increasing frequency.
Human rights defenders are often catalysts for human rights change in their communities, countries, and globally. These brave individuals and collectives take on the goliaths of governments, business, organised crime and other vested interests who will stop at nothing to maintain the status quo.
This power imbalance is even more acute in the case of women, Indigenous peoples and other historically marginalised groups. Access to resources is particularly limited for rural activists and in places where governments impose legal and administrative restrictions on civil society. Impunity for human rights abuses is the norm, with many judiciaries criminalising activism rather than punishing violators.
Trends in repression
Under a state of emergency, those employed in the informal sector have found they cannot work and the price of basic items has soared. HRDs have stepped in to support communities.
Measures taken by authorities to limit freedom of expression and assembly have impacted the capacity of defenders to hold governments to account.
Sexual and gender based violence against women and girls has increased, particularly in the urban settlements of Nairobi.
The suspension of courts has restricted access to justice and legal recourse for criminalized human rights defenders.
Defenders in lockdown have become easier to find and kill by authorities, security forces, illegal armed groups and other potential human rights violators.
Restrictions on freedom of movement have prevented civil society organisations and international organisations to meet and offer support to defenders at risk.
Activists in confinement
In Colombia, lockdowns are confining activists to their homes without security or protection, leading to a surge in killings of social leaders and vulnerable human rights defenders – over 10 per week by the end of August 2020, compared to 5 per week in August last year. At time of writing, over 250 social leaders and human rights defenders have lost their lives in the country in 2020. This usually follows surveillance campaigns, which many of our contacts have reported in the field.
Detentions of journalists in Choluteca form part of a broader pattern of criminalisation and murder of human rights defenders in Honduras, while environmental rights defenders are being systematically murdered in Mexico. Defenders in each of the eight countries where we work have been steadfastly reporting these violations and developing digital strategies to support their communities, on top of their usual workload.
