South America

• ARGENTINA: ‘Citizens must be able to take part in informed discussions on the issues that affect them’

  CIVICUS speaks with Mariela Belski, Executive Director of Amnesty International Argentina, about the potential human rights effects of changes introduced by Argentina’snew government led by President Javier Milei.

  Founded in 1961, Amnesty International is the world’s largest international human rights organisation.

  What are the main measures taken by Javier Milei’s government, and what are the problems with them?

  As soon as he took office, President Milei issued a decree of necessity and urgency (DNU) to legislate on a large number of issues that will affect people’s lives. Although the National Constitution establishes that the president can only issue decrees when exceptional circumstances prevent the government following ordinary legislative procedures, decrees have been used often for decades. What’s new in this case is the number and magnitude of the changes included in the DNU, in sharp contrast with the executive’s argument that this is an emergency.

  In addition, the government sent to Congress an ‘omnibus law‘ that covers numerous issues not included in the DNU, such as tax reforms. Although it is also justified with arguments related to the context of emergency and economic instability, the bill pushes forward on issues that far exceed the emergency.

  Many changes included in the DNU and the omnibus law raise concerns about their impact on rights in areas such as employment, health, housing and freedoms of assembly and expression. Contrary to international rights standards, through deregulation and the withdrawal of the state, both pieces of legislation will have a negative impact on people’s ability to exercise their rights.

  For instance, medical insurance companies will be able to increase their fees as they like, and are already doing so. If they receive complaints about their service, the state will not impose sanctions. Drug prices will also be deregulated.

  In the area of labour, a series of regressive measures is being introduced regarding severance pay, overtime pay and the extension of probationary periods, among other things. The injunctions that courts have already granted to stop the implementation of these changes have only benefited some specific employment sectors.

  On housing, the DNU repeals the rent law and leaves contractual terms, amounts and the currency rent is paid in up to negotiation between landlords and tenants, allowing the landlord to impose whatever conditions they wish.

  According to the omnibus law, the updating of pensions will no longer be governed by a formula set by law, but left to the discretion of the executive branch.

  The bill also conceives of protest as a crime rather than a right to participation and expression of dissent. It establishes, for instance, notification requirements for any public meeting or demonstration involving three or more people. Although statements have been made that this measure would be reversed, this has not yet happened. In addition, the bill establishes the role of the ‘organiser’ to allow for the identification and eventual sanctioning of protest leaders.

  In the area of security, the bill expands the circumstances in which a police officer can be considered as acting in self-defence, weakening standards of police accountability designed to prevent abuses. Given Argentina’s high rates of police brutality, this goes in the opposite direction to what’s needed.

  The environment will also be affected by the DNU, which amends the forestry law to further enable deforestation, the glaciers law to permit more mining and the fires law to allow more burning. These provisions put natural resources at risk and could aggravate the climate crisis in Argentina.

  In terms of gender policies, both the bill and the DNU remove any reference to diversity and gender. In particular, the omnibus law introduces changes to what’s known as the ‘1,000 days law‘, approved alongside the law on the voluntary interruption of pregnancy to support those who decide to carry a pregnancy to term.

  The instrumentalisation of the economic emergency to subjugate the autonomy of women, who are viewed exclusively as mothers, and the incorporation of figures such as that of the ‘unborn child’ reveal an attempt to bring about a strong regression on sexual and reproductive rights. In a country where every year more than 300 women are murdered, the real emergency should be to design effective policies against gender-based violence.

  How does the new ‘anti-picket’ protocol affect freedom of expression and the right to protest?

  Amnesty International believes that guidelines for police and state action set out in the Protocol for the maintenance of public order in the face of roadblocks violate freedoms of assembly, association and expression. The powers vested in police and security agents to intervene aren’t aligned with international standards on the use of force and risk escalating violence and social conflict, endangering people’s lives and physical integrity.

  The protocol must reconcile the objectives of preserving ‘public order’ and ‘freedom of movement’ with the state’s obligations to respect and protect the physical integrity of individuals and the right to freedoms of assembly and expression, which are protected by the National Constitution and international human rights instruments. Both the protocol and the omnibus law seek to criminalise protesters and impose sanctions, including financial sanctions, that in practice could lead to the disappearance of collectives and organisations.

  Argentina’s regulatory system doesn’t establish an order of priority between rights: neither free transit nor the right to protest take precedence over the other. The banning of demonstrations because of the possible disruption of free movement contradicts domestic norms.

  The Argentine state must comply with its international human rights obligations, particularly regarding the right to protest, freedoms of assembly, association and expression and the use of force by its police and security agents.

  Do you view these measures, and the way they are being taken, as a danger to democracy?

  Amnesty International is concerned that a bill that will impact on numerous key aspects of people’s lives is being pushed through against the clock and during extraordinary congressional sessions.

  In just three weeks the executive has proposed, through the DNU and the omnibus law, massive changes in legislation and regulations that were part of a consensus built over the past 40 years. The essence of democracy lies in citizens’ ability to take part in informed discussions on the issues that affect them. The extremely fast-paced discussion of these policies raises serious doubts about the integrity of the deliberative process.

  Argentina’s context of economic and social crisis does call for profound reforms. Poverty over 40 per cent and exorbitant inflation rates demand a change of course. Reforms, however, must be carried out within the existing institutional and constitutional framework.

  The omnibus law seeks a delegation of powers to the executive on a scale never seen before, in all spheres. Further, it establishes that the regulations issued in the exercise of this delegation will be permanent, except when the nature of the measure determines its transitory character and this is expressly stated.

  Congress should carry out this process in an appropriate manner, following the principles set out in our constitution. Decisions that so significantly affect people’s lives should not be made in haste, but through public debate and following established procedures.

  What initiatives is Amnesty International developing on these issues?

  Regarding the protocol for the maintenance of public order we have presented an analysis with input and comments based on national and international standards. Our aim is to contribute to developing public policies that respect people’s rights.

  Regarding the DNU and the omnibus law, we are organising meetings with officials and colleagues from various areas to jointly analyse the legislation and evaluate next steps.

  Finally, we are preparing a document analysing the first 100 days of Milei’s government from a human rights perspective. In the same vein, we will be monitoring Congress closely.

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  Civic space in Argentina is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with Amnesty International Argentina through itswebsite or itsFacebook, Instagram, TikTok orTwitter accounts, and contact Mariela Belski through herInstagram orLinkedIn accounts.

• BOLIVIA: ‘Forest fires translate into loss of biodiversity and a low quality of life’

   

  

  CIVICUS speaks with Jordi Surkin, conservation director of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Bolivia, about recent fires in four of Bolivia’s nine departments.

  WWF has been working in Bolivia since 1993, pursuing the vision of a country where humans live in harmony with nature.

   

  How have the fires that broke out in October evolved?

  It is important to clarify that the use of fire is an ancient practice as part of agricultural management and land preparation. However, the fires have got out of control as a result of ongoing droughts that may be linked to climate change. In 2019, 6.4 million hectares burned in Bolivia. There are years when the situation is not as severe, but it is still significant.

  The impact and scale of fires varies from year to year depending on climatic factors. Extreme weather conditions of drought, temperatures and winds – as part of the impact of climate change – along with high levels of deforestation increase the likelihood of large fires.

  Fires have also got out of control due to the growing inappropriate use of fire. Some agricultural producers use fire to prepare land without taking the necessary measures to prevent it spreading beyond their plots. And of course, there is also the use of fire for illegal purposes such as land speculation and illegal plantations.

  Is the increase in the incidence and severity of fires linked to climate change?

  The most tangible change Bolivia has experienced has been unusually high temperatures. The temperatures we have persistently experienced in recent months have been extremely high. In addition, almost 300 municipalities have been declared to be in a state of emergency due to droughts, and their main problem is often the lack of water. It has not been raining.

  In Latin America we experience the climatic phenomena of La Niña and El Niño, which are cyclical and manifest themselves in the form of droughts and floods. So not everything is attributable to climate change. What we can indeed attribute to climate change are the unprecedentedly extreme manifestations of these phenomena.

  What are the impacts of these fires?

  We are seeing that many hectares that are burned year after year are no longer regenerating. The resilience of these forests is fading away.

  The negative impact of forest fires not only translates into loss of biodiversity: it also affects everyone's quality of life. The human impact is enormous: hundreds of thousands of people have had their health affected by smoke this year and many communities have been displaced.

  As a consequence of forest fires, water wells in many communities are drying up. In 2019, for example, many families had to leave their communities and migrate to urban centres due to smoke and lack of water. This year there are hundreds of families in this situation.

  The situation has also been desperate in cities because of the smoke and increased heat. Throughout November, Santa Cruz was among the most polluted cities in the world due to smoke from the fires. We hardly saw the sun all month. Classes had to be suspended because many children were having respiratory problems. A few weeks ago, the city had an all-time record of electricity consumption because people were desperately using air conditioning for ventilation and keeping cool.

  How is civil society helping tackle the problem of forest fires?

  First of all, it should be noted that there is no government in the world that could stop the fires if at the same time people continue to set the forests on fire. And even less so in contexts of drought, high temperatures and winds of 80 kilometres per hour, as we have had recently.

  On top of this, the Bolivian government's capacity to fight fires is limited. It does not have adequate equipment or the necessary number of firefighters.

  WWF Bolivia is helping to provide equipment to the self-organised volunteer firefighters who are coming together to mitigate these fires. It is important to clarify that we are a conservation group rather than an emergency organisation. However, we try to contribute within our possibilities.

  We have been working actively with Indigenous communities so that they put together a risk management plan. This helps them to take action to reduce the likelihood of fires. We are also working to strengthen the capacities of municipal governments to monitor fires and issue early warnings.

  What should the government do to effectively prevent and control fires?

  Within the national government there’s been debate on reversing a package of laws that are perceived as contributing to exacerbating the situation. An important first step would be to revise and consolidate a legal and regulatory framework to protect forests and biodiversity.

  Existing laws should also be enforced. It is essential to increase the penalties for arson because currently the fines are derisory and therefore do not deter anyone. We need to reduce the prevalence of fire misuse, because these are the fires that get out of control.

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  Civic space in Bolivia is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with WWF Bolivia through itswebsite orFacebook profile, and follow @wwf_bolivia onTwitter andInstagram.

• Brics: Uma proposta de nova ordem mundial que ignora os direitos básicos dos cidadãos

  Escrito por Fabio de Almeida Pinto, Coordenador Executivo do IDS, e Marianna Belalba Barreto, da CIVICUS - World Alliance for Citizen Participation

  Entre 3 e 5 de setembro, o presidente Michel Temer estará em Xiamen, China, para a 9ª Cúpula dos Brics, onde se reunirá com os líderes de Rússia, Índia, China e África do Sul para discutir e aprofundar a cooperação em comércio internacional, desenvolvimento e segurança.
  Leia aqui: Estadão 

   

• CHILE: ‘Domestic and care work still falls overwhelmingly on women’

  CIVICUS speaks about International Women’s Day and civil society’s role in combatting gender inequalities in Chile with Cecilia Ananías Soto, founder of Amaranta, an independent civil society organisation (CSO) based in the Chilean city of Concepción, in the Biobío region.

  Amaranta is a feminist space made up of women from the social sciences, humanities and social activism aimed at promoting gender equality and human rights in the spheres of education, health, culture, technology and media. It was founded in early 2018 to give visibility and response to the everyday problems of women, and specifically lesbian, bisexual, transgender, working, migrant, displaced, poor and Indigenous women. Taking a critical, local and decolonial perspective, it carries out training, dialogue, research and advocacy work.

  What impacts has the COVID-19 pandemic had on Chilean women and girls, and how has civil society responded to it?

  The pandemic affected women and girls differentially and disproportionately. In the case of Chile, in the first year of the pandemic there was an explosive increase in requests for help for gender-based violence (GBV). This happened because, in the midst of mandatory quarantines, women and girls were locked in their homes together with their aggressors.

  In addition, because there was no school for a long time and even kindergartens were closed, women were on their own to care for children and sick family members, often having to abandon their work and studies to support their households. Just before the pandemic, female participation in the labour market had reached an all-time high of 53.3 per cent, while after the pandemic it fell back to 41 per cent. It will take a long time to recover women’s participation in the labour force. 

  Faced with this scenario, women and women’s groups built support networks. At the neighbourhood level, women’s groups organised community kitchens and sales or exchange fairs, among other initiatives. Many women’s groups set up helplines because the official ones were not sufficient or did not always respond. Amaranta received hundreds of requests for help with GBV in digital spaces and, despite having a small team, contributed by providing initial support and communicating basic self-care strategies.

  The pandemic forced us to move much of our work into the digital sphere. On the one hand, this allowed us to continue working, to do so safely and to reach much further. But on the other hand, not all people have access to the internet or digital literacy, so we had to find other strategies as well. Now we work by mixing face-to-face and distance gender education with educational and activist materials that we hand out in the streets, such as fanzines and stickers.

  What are the main unresolved women’s rights issues in Chile?

  A big problem is that domestic and care work still falls overwhelmingly on women. This has profound effects on women’s quality of life, because it results in them either abandoning their studies or leaving their jobs to do this unpaid work at home, or trying to become ‘superwomen’ who must be able to do everything, even if they can no longer take it because they so tired.

  This was made clear in a report published in the magazine Revista Ya in late 2020, ‘An x-ray of the zero man‘, so titled because according to the study on which the article was based, 38 per cent of men spend zero hours a week doing housework. Similarly, 71 per cent spend zero hours helping their children with schoolwork and 57 per cent spend zero hours taking care of children. In contrast, the women surveyed spend 14 hours a week more than men caring for children under the age of 14.

  Another major pending issue is that of sexual and reproductive rights. Our right to decide over our own bodies is still not recognised. Abortion is only permitted on three grounds: danger to the life of the pregnant woman, foetal malformations incompatible with life and when the pregnancy is the result of rape. At the same time, there are no comprehensive sex education programmes to prevent unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and sexual violence. During the pandemic, many instances of failure of oral hormonal contraceptives were documented. Many of these had been provided free of charge in public health facilities; as a result, many vulnerable women ended up pregnant, without being able to choose to have an abortion and without receiving any kind of monetary compensation.

  What should be done to reduce gender inequality in Chile?

  At Amaranta, we believe that we must start with non-sexist education, including comprehensive sex education. This is the only way to stop repeating stereotypes that perpetuate inequality from an early age. This is an important element in preventing GBV.

  Laws and public policies that pave the way for a more equitable and inclusive society are also important. Since 2019, Chile has gone through multiple social protests, which have included the feminist movement in a very prominent role. As a result of these protests, we now find ourselves drafting a new constitution which, if approved, we already know will include gender-sensitive justice systems. This is a tremendous step forward for our country, and even a first at the continental level.

  The International Women’s Day theme for 2022 is #BreakTheBias. How have you organised around it?

  Our ongoing campaign as an organisation is about breaking down biases and overcoming prejudices and stereotypes. We do this through education, which can take many forms: from a relatively formal talk or workshop, to recommending a book or handing out a feminist fanzine, to disseminating content through a TikTok video.

  In terms of mobilisation, we remain attentive to all calls from feminist organisations in the area and we will participate in women’s meetings, marches, bike rallies and ‘pañuelazos’ – that is, large gatherings of women wearing green scarves – that are being organised.

  Civic space in Chile is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with Amaranta through itswebsite and follow@AmarantaOng on Twitter.

   

• CHILE: ‘Migration restrictions do not tackle the causes of migration’

  CIVICUS speaks with Delio Cubides, migration legal advisor at the Chilean Catholic Migration Institute (INCAMI), about the situation of migrants in Chile, and the restrictive measures and mass expulsions that took place this year. Founded in 1955, INCAMI is a civil society organisation dedicated to supporting migrants in Chile, including through providing reception services, social assistance, advice on document regularisation, training and support in finding employment.

  How did Chile get into its current situation of anti-migrant protests and mass expulsions?

  To answer this question, we should place ourselves in the international context, to which Chile is no stranger. Since 2010, there has been an increase in the number of migrants from non-border countries, such as Venezuela and Haiti, which has surpassed the inflow from border countries.

  To a certain extent, Chile has been viewed in the region as a country with security and institutional and economic stability, while since 2013 the political, social and economic situation in Venezuela has led to an exponential increase in the inflow of people from that country, with a peak in 2013 and another in 2018, despite the fact that, unlike Haitian migration, there is no family reunification visa for Venezuelans in Chile.

  Faced with this increase in migration, the current administration of Sebastián Piñera began to adopt restrictive measures; 30 days after taking office in 2018, it enacted a policy aimed at limiting the entry of Haitians and Venezuelans. Haitian migration was heavily restricted by the implementation of a simple consular tourist visa for entry into Chile and, like other migrants, also by the elimination of the work contract visa.

  Although we do not have exact figures, we know that the rejection rate for consular visas requested by Haitians has been high; testimonies from Haitian migrants that we deal with in our offices report numerous rejections for reasons beyond their control or due to requirements they are unable to comply with.

  For example, in order to grant a permanent stay permit to migrants already present in Chile, the government requires a criminal record certificate that must be obtained from the consulate of the country of origin. In the case of countries such as Haiti, the high cost and lengthy processing time in the country of origin is compounded by the fact that, in the current political, social and health context, the certificate is almost impossible to obtain. As a result, many people are unable to submit it within the established deadlines. This requirement is currently limiting access by hundreds of people of Haitian origin to the so-called ‘extraordinary regularisation process’.

  For migrants from Venezuela, a consular visa requirement known as a ‘democratic accountability visa’ was imposed in 2019. But the desperate situation in Venezuela continued to push people to migrate despite the obstacles, as migration restrictions do not address the causes of migration.

  What these measures did not achieve, the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic did: in November 2020 the government suspended around 90,000 visa procedures for Venezuelan applicants, and many others who had already been granted their visas or had their final interview scheduled could not enter Chile because the suspension of international flights prevented them from doing so within the 90-day period established by law; therefore, their applications were administratively closed without any consideration for the pandemic situation.

  Many people have filed amparo appeals – writs for protection of constitutional rights – and have managed to have their cases reopened, but Chile has clearly opted for a strategy of restriction. All these measures were taken to regulate and control a migratory flow that was growing, but many of us see it as a reflection of the lack of empathy for the humanitarian reality that these people are going through in their countries of origin. Many of them had requested protection or were in the process of reuniting with their families, and their projects were cut short either by the pandemic or by administrative restrictions.

  Is Chilean society polarised around the issue of migration?

  I don’t see such polarisation. The situation in the city of Iquique, where in September 2021 there was a march against the arrival of migrants, was an isolated event. It was also the result of the stress that can build up in a situation of coexistence in undignified conditions, a result of the lack of public policies capable of anticipating the drama of this humanitarian crisis.

  On social media, opinions are polarised and people say many things, but these positions have not materialised in marches on the capital, Santiago de Chile, or in other cities. On the contrary, in Iquique we have seen migrants on the streets in extremely difficult conditions, and city residents welcoming and helping them to the best of their ability.

  The situation in Iquique was also one of exclusion from the possibility of regularisation of people who entered through unauthorised passages, a direct result of Law No. 21.325 on Migration and Aliens passed in April this year. In the previous regularisation process in 2018, migrants who entered through unauthorised passages were allowed to register, although no work permits were granted. Migrants know this is the case, but they prefer this precarious situation to going hungry in their countries of origin.

  In the context of the pandemic, because of health restrictions, many migrants were forced to stay in public places, unable to go anywhere else, undocumented and excluded from social benefits. This created difficulties for local residents, as well as for the migrants themselves who lacked state assistance.

  It was only after some Venezuelan migrants died while crossing the border that the Chilean state began to provide assistance, on the understanding that they were in fact refugees or asylum seekers.

  What should the state do in this situation?

  The state has an obligation to provide a solution to this situation. An alternative could be for it to coordinate with the private sector, which is in need of workers, especially in construction, agriculture, services and in some professional categories. The situation of people fitting these profiles could be regularised through coordination with the private sector, providing them with training and job placement. This would provide a different perspective on migration and would help avoid situations of dependency and lack of autonomy.

  It seems that restrictions are not the best solution. Restrictions do not stop migration, and instead deepen the violations of migrants’ rights, as they make them susceptible to the challenges of the labour market and the housing rental market and limit their access to basic rights such as health and education. They are also of no use to the authorities, who do not know where migrants are, who they are, how many they are or how they have arrived.

  Over the entire recent period since Chile returned to democracy, none of a series of governments developed a real migration policy that reformed and updated existing regulations. The current government has been the only one to propose a change in the law on migration and in migration management, but, due to the context and the pressure of migratory flows, it has turned out to be a restrictive policy, or at least one that seeks to limit the flow. It is a policy that discourages people from entering the country, driving those in a regular situation to exhaustion due to eternal waits to obtain documents, lack of communication by migration authorities and bureaucratic centralisation in Santiago.

  We are now in the middle of an election campaign, and in such times migration can be exploited to win votes. The government programmes of all the candidates have very limited information on this issue, but all who have spoken about it have done so in a restrictive tone. I think the problem lies there, more than in the fact that there is xenophobia within society. It seems that migrants only begin to be heard when they become an electoral force, which in Chile is just beginning to happen.

  How adequate is the new law to achieving ‘safe, orderly and regular’ migration?

  Law 21.325 reflects well the position of this administration on the issue of migration. It should be remembered that in December 2018 Chile refused to sign the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, arguing that each country should retain its sovereignty to set its migration rules, even though Chile had been one of the countries that had led its drafting process.

  The new law has some positive aspects and enshrines some rights, such as the rights to health, education, family reunification and work. It includes visas for minors and gives consideration to people with disabilities and women, giving them protection in certain specific cases such as pregnancy, smuggling and trafficking and gender-based violence. It decentralises the revalidation of diplomas and increases the administration’s presence in Chile’s regions. It also gives people with dependent visas autonomy to develop an economic activity.

  Although these rights are not currently refused, they are not guaranteed by law either, but rather recognised administratively, which makes them somewhat fragile.

  At the same time, the new law represents a shift in migration management. Until now, the law allowed for changes of status within the national territory, but the new law will not allow this: all visas must be obtained from consulates in the migrants’ countries of origin. This will give the administration the ultimate decision on how many migrants to allow in, which and under what conditions. This is perhaps the biggest change introduced by the new law. Only in some cases will certain people be allowed to change their migration status, but this will depend on the content of the regulatory degree that is issued to implement the new law.

  What work is the Chilean Catholic Migration Institute doing in this context?

  As it is beyond our reach to tackle the causes of migration, we defend the rights of migrants. Our objectives are to welcome, protect and integrate them. 

  We advocate with the authorities, which sometimes comes at a cost. This is necessary work because although there are migrants’ organisations, they tend to be organised around one person, a leader, and are not highly institutionalised. There are organisations for Colombians, Ecuadorians, Haitians and Venezuelans, among others. There is also Chile’s National Immigrants’ Coordination, which brings together several organisations, has a presence in protests and social media, and includes several Haitian, Peruvian and Venezuelan collectives.

  We also provide legal advice, which is what is most lacking in Chile, due to a lack of access to information, which is not promoted by the authorities who should be attending to migrants. We help with online forms and procedures and provide social assistance, particularly in the form of shelter, as there are no state-run shelters for migrants.

  Everything that exists in Chile in the area of migrants’ reception and services is the result of civil society initiatives, largely by organisations, institutions and services of the Catholic Church. INCAMI is the Catholic Church’s main body on migration issues: through the work teams of the Pastoral of Human Mobility (PMH) in each of Chile’s regions, we coordinate the reception and care of migrants with other Church bodies. Our resources are limited, but during the pandemic we have opened churches to receive women and children and we have provided all the attention we could through social media.

  We listen to what people need, something the authorities don’t do. With the help of some municipalities, we accompanied the return of thousands of people not only from neighbouring Bolivia, but also from Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, Venezuela and other countries.

  Our migration teams travel not only within the Metropolitan Region of Santiago but also to Chile’s regions, to visit the municipalities with the greatest presence of migrants and offer them the possibility of regularising their status, obtaining a visa, working under fair conditions, contributing to the social security system and accessing their fundamental rights. Sometimes we do this with the support of PMH teams in the regions, government authorities or the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

  What support do organisations defending the rights of migrants in Chile need from the international community?

  We face a regional challenge that requires a regional response. States should coordinate an international approach to migration, as is already being done by the Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V), led by the United Nations Refugee Agency and the IOM. Further progress is needed in this process, as the Venezuelan situation is far from over.

  In order to assist migrants while doing very necessary advocacy work, we need resources: staple foods to assemble basic food baskets and economic resources to pay for accommodation, among other things. It is important to remember that migrants are not the problem, but rather the symptom of realities undergoing deeper transformation, and most of them require protection.

  Civic space in Chile is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with the Chilean Catholic Migration Institute through itswebsite or itsFacebook andInstagram pages, and follow@INCAMIchile and@JosDelioCubides on Twitter. 

• CHILE: ‘The drafting of the new constitution is a historic opportunity for women’

  CIVICUS speaks with Mariela Infante Erazo, director of Corporación Humanas, about the impacts of the pandemic on women and girls in Chile, and about her hopes for advances coming from the inauguration of a new government and the process to develop a new constitution.

  Founded in 2004, Humanas is a civil society organisation (CSO) dedicated to advocating for the deepening of democracy and the inclusion of women.

  

  What has been the impact of the pandemic on women and girls in Chile?

  The pandemic has had a very serious impact on the human rights of girls and women. Women regressed more than a decade in terms of their labour market participation. When schools closed, they had to take on most of the domestic and care work, both for their children and for sick or older relatives, so many had to stop working. Those who continued to work – including by working from home – were overburdened, which had an impact on both their physical and mental health.

  Gender-based violence also increased shockingly, as confinement and restrictions of movement were quite strict in Chile. According to official statistics, domestic violence calls from adult women tripled. But the situation also affected girls facing family abuse.

  The most feminised fields of work, such as education and health, were the most in demand during the pandemic. Women are in the majority in the professions that fought the pandemic – nurses, health workers, service workers, educators – but were not given much recognition. Female educators had to undertake virtual teaching and this undermined learning, at least among economically and culturally disadvantaged people. In Chile, there is no universal access to a basic internet service, and this has been detrimental for access to education.

  A full recovery is a long way off: unemployment remains high and women’s employment rates are not recovering at the same speed as men’s. A gendered approach is needed to ensure that women can return to the labour market and regain economic autonomy, which is key to exercising our rights.

  How has civil society in general, and Humanas in particular, responded?

  In the first months of the pandemic, and especially during lockdown, there were high levels of activity among feminist organisations: many seminars, meetings and discussions took place. There was a lot of reflection and an eagerness to share. But virtual interactions are very challenging and these spaces eventually ran out of steam: the first year’s participation was reasonably high, but then it began to decline. The format is now a bit worn out; I think we need to think of new forms of participation.

  During these two years, we at Humanas have all been working from home, with the difficulties this sometimes entails for communication among co-workers. Opportunities for informal communication were lost and work slowed down. Regarding our outward work, we had to rethink workshops, seminars and training events, because it is very difficult to do interactive and motivating training sessions via computer. Of course we had to cancel all trips, which was limiting for our regional networking strategy.

  But we learned a lot about how virtual interactions can replace face-to-face ones, and we adapted.

  What are the main women’s rights issues in Chile?

  As in the rest of Latin America, there are multiple challenges. In the field of employment, a major problem is precarious work: women have more precarious, informal and lower-paid jobs, as well as higher unemployment rates.

  Women also bear the bulk of the burden of family care. This limits our free time, harms our health, limits our job prospects and hinders our political participation. That is why the feminist movement, of which we are part, prioritises the establishment of a national care system in Chile.

  In terms of sexual and reproductive rights, abortion – which used to be prohibited in all circumstances – has been legal since 2017 under three grounds: when the life of the pregnant person is in danger, when the foetus suffers from malformations incompatible with life and when the pregnancy is the result of rape.

  But during the pandemic, limitations on the exercise of sexual and reproductive rights increased: contraceptive distribution decreased, defective contraceptives were distributed through the public system and the number of preventative gynaecological examinations decreased. Many people stopped making medical consultations because health centres were overwhelmed by the number of COVID-19 cases, which left many pathologies undiagnosed and untreated.

  Chile does not have a comprehensive law to prevent violence against women in various spheres and manifestations. There is a draft law on the subject that has not made any progress for many years. The number of femicides – and attempted femicides – is very high. Violence levels are very worrying, and they increased even further under lockdown during the pandemic.

  In addition, Chile has become one of the main host countries for Venezuelan migrants and has adopted a restrictive policy towards migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, particularly women. As applying for a visa has become virtually impossible, people are entering Chile irregularly. This has led to an increase in human trafficking and smuggling, the main victims of which are women and girls.

  Irregular migration has also had an impact on labour exploitation. Without documentation, many migrant women do not even dare to go to health centres for fear of being expelled from the country. According to the principles of the Cartagena Declaration, which establishes a broad definition of asylum, Venezuelan women should be considered subjects of international protection, as they are fleeing a law-and-order crisis. But they are not recognised as such and are denied labour and health rights, among many other rights.

  Moreover, racism has increased along with xenophobia. Migrants of African descent, mainly from Colombia and Haiti, have experienced racism and xenophobia. The same is true for the Indigenous population. In the context of the territorial conflict with the Mapuche people in southern Chile, institutional and police violence have differentially affected Indigenous women, for instance during violent raids in their communities.

  How is civil society working to bring these issues into the public agenda?

  At the moment, the Constitutional Convention is the space through which we are channelling the feminist agenda. We have high expectations and are working so that the Convention will produce a general normative framework for the recognition of women’s rights, which will then have to be implemented through laws and public policies.

  I believe the current Constitutional Convention is the first of its kind in the world, with gender parity and reserved seats. The Convention does not reflect the composition of the Chilean elite – white heterosexual men – but the real Chile: it includes Indigenous people, women and people of all educational levels and professions, rather than purely lawyers as is the case with parliament. This diversity of perspectives makes it incredibly rich.

  The process of drafting a new constitution for Chile is a historic opportunity that we are trying to take advantage of to channel women’s rights issues. This process was the product of a massive social mobilisation demanding rights, justice and dignity. It embodies an institutional solution to the discontent and fragmentation of Chile’s social fabric.

  After 40 years, today we have the possibility of reshaping a constitution made during the dictatorship, which does not guarantee social rights. We are only a few months away from having a draft that will be put up to a plebiscite, which is why this current process is for us a great political moment that entails the prospect of progress on women’s rights. 

  How could gender gaps and inequalities be reduced in Chile?

  The pandemic exposed a care crisis that is structural. The private and domestic realm continues to be women’s responsibility, on top of which comes paid work. We want a paradigm shift establishing that this is a shared social responsibility, which should not fall exclusively on women. The creation of a national care system in which the state, the private sector and families – but whole families, not just women – take on family care could bring about a real transformation of the sexual division of labour.

  Attention to the issue of care is a first step in advancing a structural issue such as the sexual division of labour: taking women out of a single role, valuing their roles and even generating new sources of work for women. We need a cross-cutting care paradigm that fosters bonds of respect and solidarity. This is of enormous importance: none of us would be here now if someone had not taken care of us.

  The issue of care is also very relevant in relation to nature, water and the commons, if they are to serve to improve the quality of life for all people, rather than generate wealth for a few. What is important is that the focus be on the common good and not on extraction and accumulation. The current extractivist development model reproduces inequalities and is at the root of violence against women defenders of land and territory.

  Feminism is currently taking a much more holistic perspective and is making alliances with other social movements. We are feminists, but we are connected with other worlds – those of environmentalism, Indigenous women, women defenders of land and territory – which makes us understand that inequalities and exclusions come from the intersection of various systems of domination: those of capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy. In order to generate a profound transformation, we must take a holistic view.

  What are the expectations of Chilean feminists as a new government is inaugurated?

  Our expectations are high but realistic, not excessive. We know that four years is a short time for so many challenges and we will not be able to transform everything in such a short time, but we believe that there is political will to move forward with laws on care, equality and non-discrimination, social rights, sexual and reproductive rights, and gender violence.

  President Gabriel Boric, who took office on 11 March, self-identifies as a feminist. He has already given a positive signal by placing the Ministry of Women’s Affairs within his political cabinet, indicating that he does not understand gender as a sectoral issue; we hope that this will translate into real mainstreaming of the gender approach to permeate all policies.

  The new government’s cabinet is more than gender-balanced: it includes more female than male ministers. Several of the ministers – those of women, justice and national assets – are feminists. This is more important than the fact that there are more women, because it will allow us to make important progress on our agenda. 

  We know that, as in the rest of Latin America, there are very difficult times ahead, with a looming economic crisis and very high inflation. We will have to face a process of life becoming more precarious, in a pandemic context that continues to be somewhat uncertain. We do not know how much of a ‘normal life’ we will be able to recover, nor what it will be like.

  The new government will have to protect the work of the Convention, which is being heavily attacked and criticised by mainstream media, which rejects any redistribution of power. The new government will have to give the Convention budgetary and institutional support to continue its work. It will then receive the draft of the new constitution – which will apparently be quite transformative and will hopefully be ratified through a plebiscite – and will have to undertake the enormous task of gradually implementing parity norms in various spheres.

  Civic space in Chile is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with Corporación Humanas through itswebsite or itsFacebook page, and follow @corphumanas on Twitter. 

• CHILE: ‘The million-dollar question is how society will react if a new constitution does not come out of this’

  CIVICUS speaks about Chile’s impending constitutional referendum with Julieta Suárez Cao, PhD in Political Science and Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the Catholic University of Chile. Julieta played a leading role in the design and promotion of an innovative electoral system that ensured a gender-parity outcome in the 2021 election for Chile’s Constitutional Convention, for which she received the American Political Science Association’s 2022 Public Engagement with Research Award.

  What do you think have been the most novel elements of the Chilean constitutional process?

  A novel element has been the formation of the Constitutional Convention itself. While in other parts of the world there had already been experiences such as reserving seats for Indigenous peoples and allowing non-party candidates, in Chile these two elements were combined with a third, gender parity. This had been implemented in Mexico City but had never been done at the national level.

  Another novel element has to do with the fact that it this a change of constitution, not a simple reform. It is a profound change starting from scratch, without any kind of agreement having set parameters that determine what can and cannot be changed. The only predetermined things were three key procedures: the two-thirds rule for voting on the norms that would go in the constitution, the so-called entry plebiscite to enable the convening of a constitutional convention and the so-called exit plebiscite, meant to have the new constitution approved.

  It is also worth noting that this is a constitutional change taking place in a democratic context, and not in a moment of transition. Although a response to the social and political crisis that Chile is going through, it has not been a hasty reaction to a fleeting situation; the discussion about constitutional reform started long before the 2019 social outburst. Former president Michelle Bachelet had already tried to carry it forward during her last term in office, from 2014 to 2018, but did not succeed. The right wing, which ruled the country under Sebastián Piñera over the following period, warned that it would shelve any constitutional reform initiative, and so it did – until the social outburst forced it to re-evaluate this position, given the need to channel social demands institutionally, by means of a constitution-making process.

  What are the divides in the run-up to the 5 September plebiscite on the new constitution?

  The way dividing lines have been drawn in the face of the constitutional plebiscite is very interesting. The Constitutional Convention has been extremely transparent, perhaps too transparent, because according to some literature, politics sometimes needs a certain opacity. This, on the other hand, became a sort of constitutional reality TV, a show that was broadcast every day, 24 hours a day. Clearly, the news that made it into the media tended to be about inconsequential and even ridiculous issues, so it did not represent what was really going on there. For example, one convention member proposed to dismantle all state institutions; of course, this never even made it out of the commission, but still made headlines for a long time. Such things created an adverse climate around the Convention, which I think affected the campaign.

  Seen in perspective, it was a very dynamic process that in just one year managed to produce a full document for a new constitution. The process was a good one, even if it made public opinion focus on some absurd debates that were magnified by the media.

  This climate of opinion ended up shaping two camps. On the one hand, the rejection camp, which includes not only the right wing, but also many centre-left personalities, including many current senators. These are people who have joined the rejection camp for several reasons, and not only because they do not agree with many of the proposed reforms.

  In short, the rejection coalition ranges from the far right – which not only exists in Chile, but also reached the second round of the presidential election less than a year ago – to some individuals in the political centre. But it was the latter who became the visible face of the campaign against the constitution.

  This has been the result of a good communications strategy that consisted in delegating spokespeople roles to moderate figures while keeping extremists out of sight. They have held almost no marches or public events, because in the run-up to the initial plebiscite such demonstrations included weapons, Nazi flags, swastikas and other images that provoke strong rejection.

  For its part, the coalition in favour of the new constitution includes numerous former convention members, most of whom have campaigned in favour of it, deputies, senators and many popular artists. The government is not allowed to participate in the campaign or speak directly in favour of one or other option. For this reason, it only intervened by providing information: in particular, it collaborated with the printing of the new constitution, which is now one of the best-selling books in Chile.

  Is Chilean society similarly divided?

  Public opinion polls show that Chilean society is not polarised, unlike the elites.

  What we see in Chile is asymmetric polarisation, a phenomenon that also occurs in countries such as Brazil and the USA. What creates asymmetrical polarisation is the presence of right-wing extremism. The extreme left is very small: it collects very few votes and has no media presence and no national visibility. The far right, however, has almost been normalised.

  What is happening now is that it a referendum is by its very nature polarising, simply because it only provides two opposing options. If a plebiscite takes place in a context where the elites are polarised, it deepens division. For the time being, however, I think its effects have not reached deep into Chilean society.

  A few months ago opinion polls appeared to show a majority in favour of approval, but now the opposite seems to be the case. Has the consensus for reform shifted?

  I wouldn’t say that reformist consensus has been eroded. Practically nobody defends Pinochet’s Constitution: almost everybody who promotes rejection does so with the argument that rejection must be followed by reform. In other words, almost nobody advocates for keeping the current constitution, although if rejection wins, that is precisely what will happen, at least in the short term. Given the lack of agreement within the rejectionist coalition, its victory would open up a period of enormous uncertainty.

  While reformist consensus has not been eroded, a distorted climate of opinion has been created by disinformation campaigns, presenting implausible interpretations of debates and fake news to sow doubts about the contents of the constitutional text. For example, the claim that the new constitution does not protect private property or that Indigenous people would have ‘privileges’ was widely circulated. All of this has interfered with public debate and cast doubt over the viability of the proposal.

  What do think are the most positive and the most negative aspects of the new constitution?

  Personally, I like the new constitution very much. It establishes a political system with less presidential powers and a better balance between the executive and legislative branches. The current constitution is an authoritarian text that is very biased in favour of the ‘strong man’.

  I also like the definition of Chile as a regional state, a sort of intermediate form between the unitary and federal state. Chile is one of the most centralised countries in Latin America and the most centralised among democratic Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries.

  The whole agenda of rights and the social state embraced by the new constitution also seems very positive to me. The incorporation of gender parity, a gendered perspective and multiculturalism are great advances. It was high time for plurinationality and Indigenous peoples to be recognised.

  The doubts I have concern some issues that are outside my area of expertise, related to some aspects of plurinationality, such as the implementation of differentiated justice systems and Indigenous autonomies. This is also one of the issues that has highest levels of rejection among public opinion, for reasons that include racism, classism and a complex context in the south of Chile, where there is an ongoing conflict between the state and some Indigenous Mapuche communities.

  But the truth is, most of these issues are only stated in the constitution and will be subject to ordinary legislation that must come from the current Congress, which has no reserved seats for Indigenous peoples. Therefore, in my opinion, positions on these issues will be tempered and there won’t be any radical changes.

  Among the public, it is social rights that have the most support. Few people defend the neoliberal or subsidiary state that Chile currently has, although certain sectors of elites are concerned about the cost of changes: they wonder where the money will come from to finance all these rights, as if this were a good argument for deciding whether or not to recognise a right!

  What will happen if the new constitution is approved, and what will happen if it is rejected?

  If the constitution is approved the process will continue, as many provisions in the new constitution require additional ordinary legislation. In that case, a process of intense legislative activity will begin to give form to the new constitution’s mandates.

  If rejection wins, much will depend on how big its win is. If it wins by a large margin, it will be more difficult for the constitution-making process to continue. If the rejectionist option wins, the government will immediately submit a bill to call for a new election to select convention members. But the approval of such a bill requires over 57 per cent of the votes in both chambers, a majority the government does not have, so it will need the right wing’s votes. The right’s willingness to sit down and negotiate will depend on its margin of victory.

  If it wins narrowly, it will try to design a more inoffensive constitution-making process, with a smaller convention, a shorter mandate, no gender parity and no Indigenous peoples or very few reserved seats. If it wins by a landslide, there will be no constitutional convention, but a reform passed through Congress or designed by a commission of experts. We would be back to square one and absolutely everything would have to be renegotiated.

  The million-dollar question is how society will react if a new constitution does not come out of this and the process does not continue or continues in a deficient way. I do not dare to venture an answer to this question.

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  Civic space in Chile is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Follow@jujuchi on Twitter.

• CHILE: ‘There is social consensus that the arbitrary exclusion of diverse families is unacceptable’

  CIVICUS speaks with Marco Becerra, director of ACCIONGAY, about the process leading to the recent passage of Chile’s Equal Marriage Law. ACCIONGAY is a civil society organisation founded in 1987 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which was then ignored or minimised as a problem that only affected ‘risk groups’. Over time it expanded its scope of action to advocate for the rights of LGBTQI+ people, based on the principle that all people have the right to self-determination in relation to their lives, bodies, health, relationships and sexuality.

  What was the process leading to the legalisation of equal marriage in Chile, and what role did ACCIONGAY play in it?

  It was a long process, lasting about 30 years. The movement for sexual and gender diversity in Chile began to emerge in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This process had different stages. At first, work focused on the consolidation and visibility of the movement in a context of post-dictatorship political transition that was very unfavourable to the demands for equality of LGBTQI+ people. In the second stage, work focused on political advocacy to achieve effective commitment by political groups to tackle the challenges related to the inclusion of LGBTQI+ people.

  By the late 1990s, some important changes began to take place, such as the repeal of a law that criminalised sexual relations between adult men. However, other demands – such as that for equal marriage – only came into the public conversation around 2005, when equal marriage was legalised in Spain. Around that time ACCIONGAY received a visit from Spanish activist Pedro Zerolo, who helped us understand the importance of broadening the debate on civil unions and the recognition of LGBTQI+ people’s rights.

  In a broader sense, I would venture to say that demands for equality before the law were the result of a social and cultural change that Latin America had been experiencing for several years. The legalisation of equal marriage in Argentina and Uruguay, as well as its progress throughout Europe, prompted Chilean LGBTQI+ movements and sexual diversity organisations to mobilise around equality issues.

  It is important to highlight the contributions of numerous organisations and activists who worked consistently over the years to build alliances with progressive political groups, which became committed to these struggles. The idea of civil unions became a reality during the first government of President Michelle Bachelet, in 2015, and later on, as favourable public opinion grew and the perception of these inequalities as an injustice increased, the demand for equal rights for same-sex families gained momentum.

  The Equal Marriage Bill was sent to Congress by Bachelet’s second government in 2017 and finally passed in December 2021. It will come into force in March and will represent a very significant change for the lives of hundreds of families with same-sex parents who did not have any legal recognition and therefore experienced complete defencelessness before the state.

  The keys to achieving this breakthrough were movement coordination, advocacy with political decision-makers and campaigning to raise awareness and sensitise public opinion.

  How did this process interact with the 2019 wave of protests and the process to develop a new constitution that followed?

  Chile is going through a complex, epoch-changing process that came about as a result of the 2019 social outburst. But the demands for equality and recognition of the rights of LGBTQI+ people largely predate this. This movement was already very strong before the social outburst, including a network of organisations that was very active and mobilised since the 1990s. However, the context of social mobilisation helped create an environment conducive to the consolidation of LGBTQI+ movement as a presence recognisable on the streets in citizen protests demanding more equality.

  The profound social change that began to take place in Chile picked up on the historical struggles of LGBTQI+ organisations and movements that rose up in the context of the 2019 social outburst. To a large extent this was reflected in the number of LGBTQI+ people who recently got elected, especially for the Convention in charge of drafting the new constitution, as well as in the ministerial appointments of LGBTQI+ people made by the next president, Gabriel Boric.

  Why did approval take so long, when polls showed very high levels of public support?

  Although Chile has a very active civil society, its political system, even following recent changes, still includes extremely conservative enclaves. This was reflected in the difficulty that Congress had in moving this law forward, not least because there was no strong commitment from successive presidents. Nevertheless, Bachelet’s second government did act on the idea of legalising equal marriage. It was during her government that the Civil Union Law was passed and the Gender Identity Bill was sent to Congress, which was then passed during President Rafael Piñera’s term.

  From the point of view of people’s perceptions, changes occurred because a social consensus was reached that the arbitrary exclusion of diverse families is unacceptable. Support for equal marriage is striking: almost 70 per cent of Chileans agree, and a similar number support adoption by same-sex couples.

  Campaigns for equal marriage were mainly developed by LGBTQI+ organisations with the support of other social movements, human rights organisations and feminists, to name a few. At the same time, alliances, solidarity and trust were built not only with other social organisations but also with progressive sectors within political parties. Support for the Equal Marriage Law was quite cross-cutting, including a segment of the liberal centre-right that contributed their votes to make it possible. Only ultra-conservative sectors excluded themselves.

  Some leaders of Evangelical Pentecostal churches, which have achieved some social influence in Chile, mobilised against the Equal Marriage Law, but were defeated in the parliamentary debate. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, remained silent, probably because in recent years it has lost social and political relevance as a consequence of the scandals of paedophilia and sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy against children and adolescents.

  What will be the immediate effects of the new law, and what remains to be done?

  This law will have immediate consequences as it will guarantee the enjoyment of all rights and the positive effects of marriage regardless of people’s sex or sexual orientation. As the law includes issues of adoption and parentage, it will solve a number of problems experienced by families of same-sex partners with children. For instance, non-biological parents had no legal rights to the children they were raising as theirs; now they will get legal recognition.

  Chile has experienced a series of legal advances: the Anti-Discrimination Law in 2012, the Civil Union Law in 2015, the Gender Identity Law in 2018 and the Equal Marriage Law starting in 2022. However, high levels of discrimination persist in work and education. Violence against LGBTQI+ communities is rampant.

  From March onwards, we will face the enormous challenge of reviewing our work agenda, especially since after 11 March we will have a progressive government that has incorporated equality and recognition of LGBTQI+ communities in its policy programme. 

  We are sure that this will be a very different government from its predecessors, and we are very hopeful that it will be possible to start closing the gap of real inclusion of LGBTQI+ people in all areas of social life, from public administration institutions to the educational sphere.

  Civic space in Chile is rated ‘obstructed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with ACCIONGAY through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@acciongay on Twitter.

• COLOMBIA: ‘Civil society is an important pillar in work with the migrant population’

  CIVICUS speaks with Carmen Aida Faria, director of Fundación Manitas Amarillas (Little Yellow Hands Foundation), about the difficulties faced by Venezuelan migrants in Colombia and the work being done by civil society to facilitate their access to rights.

  Manitas Amarillas is a Colombian civil society organisation (CSO) formed in 2018, in the context of mass Venezuelan migration to Colombia, to provide humanitarian assistance, access to health services and counselling to migrants and refugees.

  How has the situation of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia changed in recent years?

  Migration flows into Colombia have changed over time. The 2015 wave of Venezuelan migration was very important, but the number of migrants increased over the following years, peaking in 2017. Compared to the previous wave, this one included a lot more people in vulnerable situation.

  The new arrivals needed immediate healthcare and access to other fundamental rights that the system could not provide. Colombia did not have the infrastructure or the financial resources to respond, particularly in border areas, where local populations also experience deficits in access to education and healthcare, among other rights.

  Migrants in vulnerable situations were also unable to receive monetary aid through the Colombian government’s social assistance programmes or enter the subsidised health system. To access social programmes, people must have a regular migration status.

  In addition to a permanent migrant population, there is also the population in border areas that constantly crosses the border back and forth to access certain services. For instance, many children who live in Venezuela go to school in Colombia and are not included in school food programmes. There are organisations working specifically to ensure these children have access to food, as they arrive with significant nutritional problems.

  These processes created a demand for the community, but above all for the Colombian state, to respond to. And the country began to operate under a logic of solidarity and gratitude: Colombians remember that in the past it was Venezuela that received Colombian migrants. Thus, the government began to grant special residence permits to regularise this population in some way. But the definite milestone was the Temporary Statute of Protection for Venezuelan Migrants (ETPMV), approved in 2021 under an essentially humanitarian logic.

  What did the implementation of this new policy entail?

  The ETPMV implied temporary regularisation so that Venezuelans could benefit from the same rights and have the same duties as Colombian nationals. Upon receiving an identity document called a Temporary Protection Permit, migrants have the possibility of accessing the health system and the labour market, among other rights.

  Theoretically, the mechanism is well thought out. However, putting it into practice has been hard. Many people have been left out: more than 2.4 million migrants have registered in the Single Registry for Venezuelan Migrants, but there are still more than a million who, having completed the full process, have not received their permit.

  Some people applied for the permit in September 2021, more than a year ago, and have consulted Migración Colombia, the authority for migration control and monitoring, but still do not know what has happened to their application. Some have not received their permits due to logistical problems: this is a highly mobile population and when they change addresses it is often not possible to locate them to deliver the documentation.

  But it is also the case that difficulties continue once the permit has been obtained. This is an indication of deeper problems. When Venezuelans go with their permit to open a bank account or register with the health system, they are often rejected. The Temporary Protection Permit is a new document and many institutions, both public and private, are not yet familiar with it. A lot of education is needed to make these rights effectively accessible.

  The ETPMV was supposed to prioritise the most vulnerable population groups. The first to receive their permits were supposed to be people in need of immediate medical attention and children and adolescents who needed them to enter the education system due to lack of identity papers. This ultimately did not happen, to such an extent that legal appeals have had to be filed to ensure access to healthcare for people with chronic illnesses or other conditions in need of immediate attention.

  How is Colombian civil society supporting Venezuelan migrants?

  Since the last big wave of migration in 2017, many CSOs have emerged. It was the migrant community itself that first began to get together to help other migrants. We started giving food out on the street and providing humanitarian assistance to walkers, as we call the people moving on foot through Colombian territory, who did not have basic information or even warm enough clothing to withstand Colombia’s climate.

  CSOs have become an important pillar in work with the migrant population, because we are on the ground and we know the problems migrants have.

  Currently, many CSOs are working together in coordination with the Mayor’s Office of Bogotá and promoting several joint initiatives. We have launched public campaigns and signed a symbolic pact to promote integration, because Venezuelan migrants in Colombia continue to suffer from xenophobia and discrimination as a result of their poverty. We have asked the media to stop mentioning the nationality of crime perpetrators, because they only do so when the person involved is a foreigner, thus overstating the problem and contributing to discrimination against Venezuelans.

  We are also participating, in collaboration with the Colombian government and international cooperation agencies, in the first ‘Entregatón’, a massive permit delivery operation aimed at distributing 40,000 permits in five days. Migración Colombia has sent messages via mobile phone to migrants whose documents are ready, notifying them of the date and place where they can pick them up.

  But in addition to handing out the documents, as part of the operation, enrolment and biometric registration services are being provided for those who have not yet completed these stages of the process. People who have already received their permits are also offered vaccination services, access to healthcare providers, registration with the social assistance system, legal support and information on various other issues, from the transportation system to school access to programmes targeted at migrant women.

  There is so much work and CSOs are contributing enormously. The government and international cooperation agencies should take us into account not only as sources of diagnoses of migration issues, but also as partners when it comes to jointly implementing public policies arising from those diagnoses.

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  Civic space in Colombia is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with Manitas Amarillas through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@MANITASAMARI on Twitter.

• COLOMBIA: ‘Lack of regular migration status imposes barriers to accessing rights’

  CIVICUS speaks with Jessica Corredor Villamil and Lina Arroyave about the situation of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in Colombia. Jessica is the director of and Lina a researcher in Dejusticia’s international team.

  Dejusticia is a centre for legal and social studies based in Bogotá, Colombia, dedicated to promoting human rights in Colombia and the global south. It promotes social change through action-research, developing public policy proposals, advocacy campaigns and strategic litigation.

  How has Colombia changed its legal framework to accommodate Venezuelan migration?

  There are currently three ways in which Venezuelan nationals can obtain the status that allows them to stay in Colombia for extended periods: visas, refugee status and the Temporary Protection Status for Venezuelan Migrants (ETPMV).

  The ETPMV was established in 2021 to address the situation of mass migration from Venezuela. It has two main objectives: to identify the Venezuelan migrant population and regularise their migratory situation. To this end, two mechanisms are envisaged. The first is the Single Registry of Venezuelan Migrants, which collects personal and socio-economic data of those who register, administered by Migración Colombia, the authority in charge of migration control and surveillance. The second is the Temporary Protection Permit, which authorises its holders to stay in Colombia for 10 years and allows them to access the health, social security, education and financial systems, validate their diplomas, work and leave and re-enter the country.

  Those in Colombia who have regular status, who have requested refuge but have not yet received a response, who entered the country irregularly before 31 January 2021, who have entered the country regularly after May 2021, or do so before late May 2023 are all eligible for temporary protected status. After that cut-off date, it will only be available to children and adolescents.

  Even so, people are not guaranteed temporary protected status if they meet all the requirements, since it is granted at the discretion of Migración Colombia.

  How has the ETPMV system worked during its first year?

  The process has takenlonger than expected, falling short of the goal set by the previous government of delivering 1.8 million identification documents by 2022.

  According to data from Migración Colombia, as of November 2022 about 2.5 million people have entered their data in the Single Registry for Venezuelan Migrants and 1.6 million permits have been approved.

  This gap is worrying because lack of regular migration status imposes barriers to accessing fundamental rights and hinders the socio-economic integration of migrants.

  In addition, many people did not register because they were unable to regularise their migration status. The ETPMV was only available to those in an irregular situation who had entered Colombia before 31 January 2021. This time limitation ignores the fact that irregular migration continues, largely because of the impossibility of obtaining official documents in Venezuela. Irregular status is assumed to be the result of individual decisions, when it is usually results from the impossibility of complying with the requirements imposed.

  What integration barriers do Venezuelan migrants face in Colombia?

  In a recentreport we identified multiple barriers to accessing and remaining in the formal labour market, as well as for setting up a business.

  The main legal barrier is lack of regular migration status. The thousands of people who continue to enter Colombia through informal border crossings are denied access to temporary protected status. This has an impact on both formalising their employment and access to entrepreneurship support funds, particularly from the state, but also from the private sector. A majority of self-employed migrant workers work in the informal sector.

  Widespread ignorance among employers of migration legislation imposes additional barriers. For instance, many are unaware that the validation of university degrees is only required for professions that involve high social risk, such as medicine, or that are regulated by the state, such as architecture or law, for which all applicants must follow a process to validate their diplomas and have professional cards issued. This procedure requires an official certificate that must be obtained in Venezuela, and those who are already in Colombia face immense difficulties in securing this.

  There are also social and cultural factors that can affect the employment situation. Negative perceptions of the Venezuelan migrant population affect recruitment processes. Xenophobia and discrimination deepen in situations of insecurity, although there is no evidence of links between migration and increased crime.

  Lack of social capital – such as well-placed contacts and job references – is also a problem for migrants.

  Additional obstacles make it difficult for migrant workers to remain in the formal economy. For example, many banks refuse to open savings accounts for Venezuelan migrants. They not only require them to prove their regular migration status but also demand an up-to-date passport, which they usually don’t have. Similar challenges come with some health insurers, pension funds and occupational risk insurance companies.

  As a result, to earn an income many migrants are forced into precarious jobs and exploitative working conditions, including extremely long working hours, sub-minimum wages, mistreatment and changes in agreed working conditions. In 2019, the average monthly income of a Venezuelan migrant was less than the legal minimum wage, and the wage gap compared to Colombian nationals was more than 30 percentage points.

  What is Dejusticia doing to promote migrants’ rights?

  As a civil society organisation, we carry out research on migrants’ access to rights that we use to influence decision-making processes on migration policy and formulate public policy recommendations. In the research process leading to ourreport on the labour inclusion of Venezuelan migrants, for example, we organised an event to which we invited various stakeholders, including government agencies, to work on recommendations. Also, when anew government took office in August 2022, we produced a series of recommendations, in partnership with other organisations.

  We also develop strategic litigation and communications campaigns, and work with other organisations, both nationally, regionally and in other regions of the global south, to address the migration phenomenon from a broader perspective.

  What support from the international community do organisations defending the rights of migrants in Colombia need?

  It is important for the international community to shed visibility on and support the processes that are taking place in relation to the rights of Venezuelan migrants. But it is also very important that the support of the international community covers other migratory flows and takes into account the problems happening on the Colombia-Panama border, crossed by migrants of various nationalities trying to head towards the USA.

  It is also important for the international community to remind the Colombian government of the commitments it has made by ratifying treaties and adopting international standards on migration and refugees.

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  Civic space in Colombia is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with Dejusticia through itswebsite orFacebook page and follow@DeJusticia and@JessCorredorV on Twitter.

• COLOMBIA: “La carencia de estatus migratorio regular impone barreras de acceso a derechos”

  CIVICUS conversa con Jessica Corredor Villamil y Lina Arroyave sobre la situación de las personas migrantes y refugiadas venezolanas en Colombia. Jessica esdirectora y Lina es investigadora del área internacional de Dejusticia.

  Dejusticia es un centro de estudios jurídicos y sociales localizado en Bogotá, Colombia, y dedicado a promover los derechos humanos en Colombia y en el sur global. Promueve el cambio social a través de la investigación-acción, desarrollando propuestas de políticas públicas, campañas de incidencia y litigios estratégicos.

  ¿Cómo ha reformado Colombia su marco legal para acoger a la migración venezolana?

  Actualmente hay tres vías mediante las cuales las personas nacionales de Venezuela pueden obtener el estatus migratorio que les permite permanecer en Colombia por períodos prolongados: las visas, la solicitud de la condición de refugiado y el Estatuto Temporal de Protección para Migrantes Venezolanos(ETPMV). 

  Este último fue establecido en 2021 para atender la migración masiva procedente de Venezuela. Tiene dos grandes objetivos: identificar a la población migrante venezolana y regularizar su situación migratoria. Para esto prevé dos mecanismos. El primero es el Registro Único de Migrantes Venezolanos, que recoge los datos personales y socioeconómicos de quienes deciden registrarse y es administrado por Migración Colombia, la autoridad de vigilancia y control migratorio. El segundo es el Permiso por Protección Temporal, que autoriza a su portador a permanecer en Colombia por 10 años y le permite acceder a los sistemas de salud y seguridad social, educativo y financiero, convalidar títulos, trabajar y salir del país y reingresar.

  Pueden acogerse al ETPMV quienes se encuentren en Colombia de manera regular, quienes han solicitado refugio pero aún no han recibido respuesta, quienes ingresaron al país de manera irregular antes del 31 de enero de 2021, y quienes lo hicieron de manera regular desde finales de mayo de 2021 o lo hagan antes de finales de mayo de 2023. Luego de esa fecha, solo será una opción para niños, niñas y adolescentes.

  Aun así, el cumplir con todos los requisitos no es garantía de obtención del ETPMV, ya que su otorgamiento es facultad discrecional de Migración Colombia.

  ¿Cómo ha funcionado el ETPMV durante su primer año? 

  El proceso se hademorado más de lo previsto, lo cual impidió cumplir la meta del gobierno anterior de entregar 1.8 millones de documentos de identificación en 2022.

  Según datos de Migración Colombia, hasta noviembre de 2022 cerca de 2,5 millones de personas han ingresado sus datos en el Registro Único para Migrantes Venezolanos, y se han aprobado 1,6 millones de permisos.

  Esta brecha es preocupante porque la carencia de estatus migratorio regular impone barreras de acceso a derechos fundamentales y obstaculiza la integración socioeconómica de la población migrante.

  Además, muchas personas no se inscribieron en el registro por no haber podido regularizar su situación migratoria. El ETPMV solamente estaba disponible para las personas en situación irregular que hubieran ingresado a Colombia hasta el 31 de enero de 2021. Esta limitación temporal ignora el hecho de que la migración irregular continúa, en gran medida a causa de la imposibilidad de acceder a documentos oficiales en Venezuela. Se asume que la situación de irregularidad obedece a una decisión individual, cuando por lo general es el resultado de la imposibilidad de cumplir con los requisitos exigidos.

  ¿Qué barreras de integración enfrentan las personas migrantes venezolanas en Colombia?

  En un recienteinforme identificamos las múltiples barreras de acceso y permanencia en el mercado laboral formal, así como para el desarrollo de emprendimientos.

  La principal barrera legal es la carencia de estatus migratorio regular. Las miles de personas que continúan ingresando a Colombia por pasos fronterizos informales tienen vedado el acceso al ETPMV. Esto tiene impactos tanto para la formalización laboral como para el acceso a fondos de apoyo al emprendimiento, en particular estatales, pero también privados. La mayoría de los trabajadores migrantes independientes trabaja en el sector informal.

  El desconocimiento generalizado de la legislación migratoria por parte de los empleadores impone barreras adicionales. Por ejemplo, muchos desconocen que la convalidación de títulos universitarios solo es imprescindible para profesiones cuyo ejercicio implica altos riesgos sociales, como la medicina, o cuyo ejercicio es regulado por el Estado, como el derecho o la arquitectura, y exigen a todos los postulantes la realización del trámite de convalidación de títulos y expedición de tarjetas profesionales. Este trámite requiere de una apostilla que debe ser obtenida en Venezuela antes de migrar, y quienes ya se encuentran en Colombia enfrentan enormes dificultades para conseguirla.

  También existen factores sociales y culturales que pueden afectar la situación laboral. Las percepciones negativas de la población migrante venezolana afectan los procesos de selección de personal. La xenofobia y la discriminación se profundizan cuando ocurren hechos de inseguridad, pese a que no hay evidencia de vínculos entre el aumento de la criminalidad y el de la migración.

  La falta de capital social, es decir, de contactos bien posicionados y referencias laborales, también es un problema para las personas migrantes.

  Algunos obstáculos adicionales dificultan la permanencia en la economía formal. Por ejemplo, muchos bancos se niegan a abrir cuentas de ahorros a personas migrantes venezolanas ya que les exigen no solamente acreditar estatus migratorio regular sino también presentar su pasaporte actualizado, con el que habitualmente no cuentan. Algo similar ocurre con algunas aseguradoras de salud, fondos de pensiones y aseguradoras de riesgos de trabajo.

  De ahí que muchas personas migrantes con tal de conseguir algún ingreso acepten empleos precarios y se sometan a condiciones de explotación laboral que incluyen jornadas de trabajo extremadamente largas, salarios por debajo del mínimo, malos tratos y cambios en las condiciones laborales acordadas. En 2019, los ingresos mensuales promedio de una persona migrante venezolana fueron inferiores al salario mínimo legal vigente, y la brecha salarial frente a los nacionales colombianos fue de más de 30 puntos porcentuales.

  ¿Qué trabajo hace Dejusticia para promover los derechos de las personas migrantes? 

  En tanto que organización de la sociedad civil, hacemos investigaciones sobre el acceso a derechos de las personas migrantes para sobre esa base hacer incidencia en los procesos de toma de decisiones en materia de política migratoria y formular recomendaciones de política pública. En el proceso de investigación para nuestroinforme sobre la inclusión laboral de las y los migrantes venezolanos, por ejemplo, organizamos un evento al cual invitamos a los diferentes sectores involucrados, incluidas varias agencias gubernamentales, para trabajar en las recomendaciones. Asimismo, al iniciarse unnuevo gobierno en agosto de 2022 elaboramos un documento con recomendaciones, en alianza con otras organizaciones.

  También desarrollamos litigios estratégicos y campañas de comunicación, y trabajamos con otras organizaciones, a nivel tanto nacional como regional y de otras regiones del sur global, para abordar el fenómeno de las migraciones desde una mirada más amplia.

  ¿Qué apoyo de la comunidad internacional necesitan las organizaciones que defienden los derechos de las personas migrantes en Colombia?

  Es importante que la comunidad internacional dé visibilidad y apoye los procesos que se están dando en relación con los derechos de las personas migrantes venezolanas. Pero también es muy importante que el apoyo de la comunidad internacional abarque otros flujos migratorios y dé cuenta de la problemática en la frontera colombo-panameña, paso obligado para personas migrantes de distintas nacionalidades que quieren llegar a los Estados Unidos.

  También es importante que la comunidad internacional le recuerde al gobierno de Colombia los compromisos que ha adquirido a partir de la ratificación de tratados y la adopción de estándares internacionales en materia de migración y refugio.

  ---

  El espacio cívico en Colombia es calificado como ‘represivo’ por elCIVICUS Monitor.

  Contáctese con Dejusticia a través de susitio web o su página deFacebook y siga a@DeJusticia y a@JessCorredorV en Twitter.

• COP26: ‘Much more money is being invested in destroying the planet than in saving it’

  The 26th United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP26) has just ended in Glasgow, UK, and CIVICUS continues to interview civil society activists, leaders and experts on the outcomes of the summit, its potential to solve the environmental challenges they face and the actions they are taking to address them.

  CIVICUS speaks with Ruth Alipaz Cuqui, an Indigenous leader from the Bolivian Amazon and general coordinator of the National Coordination for the Defence of Indigenous Peasant Territories and Protected Areas (CONTIOCAP). The organisation was founded in late 2018 out of the convergence of several movements of resistance against the destruction of Indigenous territories and protected areas by extractive projects and the co-optation of traditional organisations representing Indigenous peoples. Initially composed of 12 movements, it now includes 35 from all over Bolivia.

  

  What environmental issues do you work on?

  As a defender of Indigenous territories, Indigenous rights and the rights of nature, I work on three different levels. First, on a personal level, I work in my community of the Uchupiamona Indigenous People, the whole of which is within one of the most diverse protected areas in the world, the Madidi National Park.

  In 2009 my people were on the verge of giving out a logging concession that would devastate 31,000 hectares of forest, in an area that is sensitive for water preservation and particularly rich in bird diversity. To stop that concession, I made an alternative proposal, focused on birdwatching tourism. Although currently, because of the pandemic, tourism has proven not to be the safest bet, the fact is that we still have the forests thanks to this activity – although they always remain under threat due to pressure from people in the community who need the money right away.

  My community currently faces serious water supply issues, but we have organised with young women to restore our water sources by reforesting the area with native fruit plants and passing on knowledge about these fruit and medicinal plants from our elders to women and children.

  Secondly, I am a member of the Commonwealth of Indigenous Communities of the Beni, Tuichi and Quiquibey rivers, a grassroots organisation of the Amazon region of Bolivia that since 2016 has led the defence of the territories of six Indigenous Nations – Ese Ejja, Leco, Moseten, Tacana, Tsiman and Uchupiamona – from the threat of the construction of two hydroelectric plants, Chepete and El Bala, that would flood our territories, displace more than five thousand Indigenous people, obstruct three rivers forever and devastate two protected areas, the Madidi National Park and the Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve. On 16 August 2021, Indigenous organisations supporting the government authorised the launch of these hydroelectric power projects.

  The Tuichi River, which is within the Madidi protected area and is essential to the community ecotourism activity of my Uchupiamona People, has also been granted in its entirety to third parties outside the community for the development of alluvial gold mining. The Mining and Metallurgy Law discriminates against Indigenous peoples by allowing any external actor to acquire rights over our territories.

  Finally, I am the general coordinator of CONTIOCAP, an organisation that has denounced the systematic violations of our rights in the Indigenous territories of the four macro regions of Bolivia: the Chaco, the valleys, the Altiplano and the Amazon. These violations come hand in hand with oil exploration and exploitation, the burning of forests and deforestation to free up land for agribusiness, the construction of roads and hydroelectric plants and the alluvial gold mining activity that is poisoning vulnerable populations.

  Have you faced negative reactions to the work you do?

  We have faced negative reactions, mainly from the state, through decentralised bodies such as the National Tax and Migration agencies. I recently discovered that my bank accounts have been ordered to be withheld by the two agencies.

  During a march led by the Qhara Qhara Nation in 2019, I was constantly followed and physically harassed by two people, while I was in the city to submit our proposals alongside march leaders.

  And recently, when Indigenous organisations sympathetic to the government gave authorisation to the hydroelectric plants, our denunciations were met with actions to disqualify and discredit us, something the Bolivian government has been doing for years. They say, for instance, that those of us who oppose the hydroelectric megaprojects are not legitimate representatives of Indigenous peoples but activists financed by international non-governmental organisations.

  How do your actions connect with the global climate movement?

  Our actions converge with those of the global movement, because by defending our territories and protected areas we contribute not only to avoiding further deforestation and pollution of rivers and water sources, and to preserving soils to maintain our food sovereignty, but also to conserving ancestral knowledge that contributes to our resilience in the face of the climate crisis.

  Indigenous peoples have proven to be the most efficient protectors of ecosystems and biodiversity, as well as of resources fundamental for life such as water, rivers and territories, against the position of the state whose laws rather serve to violate our living spaces.

  Have you made use of international organisations’ forums and spaces for participation?

  Yes, we do it regularly, for example by requesting the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to follow up on the criminalisation of and violence against defenders of Indigenous peoples’ rights in Bolivia and by participating in the collective production of a civil society shadow report for the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of Bolivia, which we presented during the Council’s pre-sessions in October 2019.

  Recently, in a hearing in the city of La Paz, we presented a report on violations of our rights to the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples.

  What do you think of the spaces for civil society participation in the COPs, and how do you assess the results of the recently concluded COP26?

  Once again, at COP26 states have exhibited their complete inefficiency in acting in compliance with their own decisions. I have stated on more than one occasion that 2030 was just around the corner and today we are only eight years away and we are still discussing what are the most efficient measures to achieve the goals set for that date.

  Much more money is being invested in destroying the planet than in saving it. This is the result of states’ actions and decisions in favour of a wild capitalism that is destroying the planet with its extractivism that is predatory of life.

  Let’s see how much progress has been made since the Kyoto Protocol, which was agreed in 2005 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, companies have used the supposed concept of the ‘right to development’ to continue operating to the detriment of the planet and, above all, to the detriment of the most vulnerable populations such as Indigenous peoples. We are the ones who pay the costs, not the ones who cause the disasters.

  The results of COP26 do not satisfy me because we want to see tangible actions. The Bolivian state has not even signed the declaration, even though it has used the space of COP26 to give a misleading speech that the capitalist model must be changed for one that is kinder to nature. But in Bolivia we have already deforested around 10 million hectares, in the most brutal way imaginable, through fires that for more than a decade and a half have been legalised by the government.

  I think that as long as these forums do not discuss sanctions on states that do not comply with agreements, or that do not even sign declarations, there will be no concrete results.

  Civic space in Bolivia is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with CONTIOCAP through itsFacebook page and follow@contiocap and@CuquiRuth on Twitter. 

• COP26: ‘We need to regenerate ourselves and what we have destroyed’

   Portuguese

  As the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) gets underway in Glasgow, UK, CIVICUS continues to interview civil society activists, leaders and experts about the environmental challenges they face in their contexts, the actions they are taking to address them and the reprisals they face because of their work.

  CIVICUS speaks with Daniel Gutierrez Govino, founder of the Alter do Chão Forest Fire Brigade, a group that works to prevent, combat and promote socio-political coordination against fires in the Amazon forest in the state of Pará, Brazil. He is also a co-founder of the Alter do Chão Aquifer Institute, an institution that promotes social projects in the town of Alter do Chão, municipality of Santarém in Pará.

  What made you become an environmental defender?

  I felt the urgency to work to keep the planet viable for humans and other species. I was moved, and still am today, by the possibility of human beings reversing their actions and ways of thinking about our role in nature. We need to regenerate ourselves and what we have destroyed.

  What does the Alter do Chão Brigade do?

  We have worked since 2017 to prevent and combat forest fires in Alter do Chão, in the municipality of Santarém in the north of Brazil. We brought together a group of community volunteers who, with great courage, have worked to protect biodiversity, the people of Alter do Chão and the region from forest fires. To do this, we received training from the Military Fire Brigade, the Civil Defence and the Municipal Secretariat for the Environment and Tourism of Belterra. We have trained new brigade members and promoted socio-political coordination and communication with local communities.

  What restrictions have you faced in response to your environmental activism?

  In the case of the Alter do Chão Brigade, I and three other brigade members were arrested in 2019 on unfounded charges of causing fires in an environmental protection area. Our work was criminalised because it proposes solutions and a transformation of the local political context.

  In addition, the current national context for organised civil society is hostile. We were scapegoats in a narrative that sought to criminalise civil society organisations, at a time when the country’s president and his supporters were trying to blame civil society for the dramatic increase in forest fires.

  I have also faced resistance when trying to promote changes in current public policies in the microcosmos of Santarém. Political and social conservatism undermine any movement that seeks to advance progressive agendas. The government, the civil police and the local elite reject environmental activism by attacking our work. We were lucky and our privilege kept us alive, but activists in the Amazon are always threatened with violence and death. It is not a safe region for those who fight for freedom and justice.

  What kind of support did you receive when you were criminalised?

  We received all kinds of support when we were arrested, both nationally and internationally. The key support came from pro bono criminal lawyers from the Freedom Project, who still accompany us to this day. But we also received support from national institutions such as Projeto Saúde e Alegria and Conectas, as well as from international ones, such as WWF Brazil, Article 19, Front Line Defenders and many others.

  We were released from prison after a few days thanks to the actions of these defence and protection networks. However, the criminal process against us has been ongoing for two years, without any proof backing the accusations against us. At the federal level, the police investigation was closed; however, the authorities of the state of Pará have insisted on charging us. Recently, the jurisdiction of the court case was challenged by the federal prosecution, but for months the process has drifted in the Brazilian justice system. Part of our equipment remains confiscated to this day. I have no more hopes for justice.

  Despite all of this, I believe that Brazilian civil society is emerging stronger. Our partner Caetano Scannavino, from Projeto Saúde e Alegria, who also works in Alter do Chão, says it is like a boomerang effect. I think this assessment is brilliant. They attack us, and their attacks make us stronger.

  What avenues are available for activists in your region to seek protection and support? What kind of support do you need from civil society and the international community?

  The main thing is to be aware of the available support networks and coordinate with them before anything bad happens, that is, to coordinate preventively. This includes national and international institutions, such as those that supported us. But above all, it is crucial to know local support networks.

  The types of support needed are specific and depend a lot on each region. Brazil is of a continental size and the needs of the south are not the same as those of the Amazon, for example. One cannot even say that the Amazon is a region, because it is, in fact, a continent with particularities in each region. But it is these networks that will connect those in need of support with those who can help.

  Civic space in Brazil is rated ‘obstructed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with Alter do Chão Forest Fire Brigade through itswebsite or itsFacebook page.

   

• ECUADOR: ‘Democracy has allowed room for organised crime and narco-politics to grow’

  CIVICUS speaks with Mauricio Alarcón Salvador, executive director of Fundación Ciudadanía y Desarrollo (Citizenship and Development Foundation, FCD), about the elections that will be held in Ecuador on 20 August, the eruption of political violence and organised crime and the implications for civil society and the future of the country.

  FCD is an Ecuadorian civil society organisation (CSO) that promotes and defends the rule of law, democratic principles and individual freedoms and encourages citizen participation, social control, transparency, open government and public innovation.

  Why is Ecuador facing general elections only two years after the inauguration of a new president?

  We will have new elections because the current president resorted to the mechanism known as ‘mutual death’, established in the constitution since 2008. This allows the president to dissolve the National Assembly on various grounds. It is known colloquially as ‘mutual death’ because ‘killing’ the legislature also causes the ‘death’ of the executive. In May this year, President Guillermo Lasso dissolved the National Assembly because, in his opinion, it had caused a serious political crisis, in the context of an impeachment trial against him based on accusations of corruption in his close entourage. The use of this mechanism allows the president to continue governing briefly without Congress but requires both legislative and presidential elections to be called within a short period of time to elect those who will complete the ongoing term. That is why the National Electoral Council called for presidential and legislative elections to be held on 20 August. Those elected in this vote will stay in power for approximately 18 months, the length of the current term remaining, which will end in May 2025.

  How has civic space evolved under this government, and what are the prospects for the future?

  For the little more than two years that this government has been in office, the situation of civic space has not changed much from the previous period. While it is true that the Organic Law on Communications was reformed to provide greater guarantees for freedom of expression and press freedom, the hostile environment against the media and journalists remains unchanged. The main aggressor may no longer be the president, but the notion persists that some people have the right to silence others just because they think differently. The climate of censorship and self-censorship hasn’t changed.

  Nor have the regulatory conditions under which CSOs operate. Although the authorities no longer persecute or intimidate them, the regulations that enable them to do so remain in place. No progress has been made towards the adoption of an NGO law fully guaranteeing freedom of association.

  Finally, as regards freedom of peaceful assembly, protests in June 2022 highlighted the weak character of the procedures available to authorities for guaranteeing it. There is still much work to be done in this regard and the challenge ahead is enormous.

  CIVICUS, an organisation of which we are members, has been key in making the situation of civic space in Ecuador and its evolution visible in recent years.

  Are the conditions for clean and transparent elections in place?

  At FCD we believe that general conditions exist for a clean and transparent electoral process. The National Electoral Council that is in charge of this process is the same that organised the presidential vote in 2021 and local elections a few months ago. These were processes that, generally speaking, have been commended by electoral observation missions. There are some pending issues to be resolved, mainly regarding the financing of politics, but in terms of the organisation of the process we are confident that everything will go well.

  As civil society, we would have liked to collaborate much more in supporting these elections, but this process came about unexpectedly and the organisations that usually take part have not been in a position to implement all our initiatives. Nevertheless, national election observation will be carried out and we have conducted campaigns to promote informed voting: we have published background information about the candidates and their government plans, and we have even monitored, albeit in a limited way, issues related to political financing. The challenge is enormous, but we are confident that we are doing our part to strengthen an extraordinary electoral process that we never saw coming.

  What are the key campaign issues?

  What we’ve seen these past few weeks is an apathetic campaign, very weak on proposals. Candidates seem to be fully aware that what is being elected is a transitional government that will last a few months, and they are not giving it due importance. Little has been said about fundamental rights and freedoms in a context where security is the main focus of public attention. This is of great concern to us, because in the face of the critical situation of insecurity at the national level, people demand quick solutions regardless of whether their implementation violates rights and freedoms. Regarding security, for example, several candidates have referred to the use of force outside of what is established by basic rights and international standards in force in Ecuador and the region.

  Unfortunately, it is difficult for a situation as serious as the one Ecuador is going through to be resolved in such a short period of time as the one that will be afforded to the future president. The main concerns of Ecuadorians are centred on insecurity, the economic crisis and corruption. It is hoped that the new government will act on these issues by listening to people and putting an end to the arrogance that has characterised the outgoing government. Although time is short, the transitional government should establish basic lines of action, either for continuity through the next period or so that whoever comes to power in 2025 will have a basis for doing so.

  How does the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio change the political scenario?

  Political violence is nothing new in Ecuador: in recent elections there have been candidates who experienced threats and attacks, which in some cases have cost them their lives.

  However, this is the first instance in a long time that a presidential candidate has been the victim of an assassination. The conditions under which the attack on Fernando Villavicencio occurred are revealing. He was a candidate with a risk assessment of over 95 per cent, who had police protection and had been denouncing constant threats against him.

  This affects not only the electoral landscape but also Ecuador’s democracy itself, which has allowed room for organised crime and narco-politics to grow. If the proper institutions act in a timely manner and not only prevent events like this from happening again, but also manage to put an end to the prevailing impunity, we will end up strengthening a weak democracy that has been crying out for help. For this to happen, there is much work ahead, focused on coordinating efforts between public institutions, civil society, the private sector and political actors in ways that put the country ahead of any particular interest.

  What international support does Ecuadorian civil society need to continue doing its work?

  After what has happened in recent years, the starting point would be to ensure that international cooperation does not abandon Ecuadorian civil society. Cooperation institutions must also understand that although it is more profitable – at least in terms of communication – to save the environment, protect species or support community development, it is key to maintain support for organisations and initiatives working for democracy and civic space, because no other initiative would be viable without these.

  The international community must keep its eyes on Ecuador and look for local allies to fight back against the democratic setbacks we are experiencing. A joint effort is needed to strengthen civil society as a fundamental pillar of democracy.

  ---

  Civic space in Ecuador is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with FCD through itswebsite orFacebook account, subscribe to itsYouTube channel and followfcd_ecuador on Instagram and@FCD_Ecuador and@aiarconsalvador on Twitter.

• ECUADOR: ‘The election provided a temporary escape valve, but instability is not over’

  CIVICUS discusses the results of the 15 October runoff vote in Ecuador’s presidential election with Humberto Salazar, executive director of Fundación Esquel.

  Esquel is a civil society organisation that seeks to contribute to sustainable human development, the improvement of the quality of life of the most excluded parts of the population and the construction of a democratic, responsible and supportive society in Ecuador.

  How did violence as a result of organised crime affect the election?

  The electoral process was deeply affected by violence. This was not limited to the death of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. In the context of these and the previous local elections, elected representatives to local governments were also assassinated. The most notorious case was that of Agustín Intriago, mayor of the city of Manta. A candidate for the National Assembly was also assassinated, and many other candidates for different positions received threats. The list of fatal victims of violence expands if we include the seven suspects captured for the Villavicencio assassination who were killed in the prisons where they were being held.

  In this context, voting preferences were surely affected. From the shadows, groups representing local and transnational mafias sent intimidating messages through violent acts that influenced people’s votes. This was very evident in the first round, when following Villavicencio’s assassination, most voters opted for candidates who until then had had no chance of reaching the runoff. This was the case with Jan Topic and Daniel Noboa, the president-elect. Both saw their numbers rebound after the assassination.

  Was violence a campaign issue in the runoff?

  The influence of violence on the elections went beyond being a campaign issue strategically chosen by the candidates. For voters, security became a central issue on the agenda, even surpassing in priority other key issues such as unemployment and poverty.

  It is not that unemployment and poverty lost relevance, but rather that the three issues became an integrated trio of aspirations that is at the basis of current demands. The electorate is looking for quick and effective, but not isolated, answers. Security, unemployment and poverty are all elements of the same equation that citizens demand from the political system.

  Although the candidates’ proposals on the issue were very general, there is a consensus in political circles that security is a key issue in Ecuador’s current situation. Consequently, in the coming days the president-elect will have to develop his security proposals in greater detail. At the polls, voters didn’t evaluate whether the proposals of either candidate on the issue were the best, nor did they have the tools to do so, but now they hope that, regardless of the policies chosen, the result of their implementation will be greater peace.

  Do you see the result as indicating a rightward turn by the electorate, or do you think the vote wasn’t ideologically motivated?

  The analysis of electoral preferences is not a game of addition and subtraction in which one side, in this case the right, wins, while the other side loses. Nor are we dealing with a naïve or uninformed electorate that has been tricked by a renewed right-wing alternative and has leaned towards right-wing values, principles and narratives as a result.

  In the current circumstances, the vote is far from ideological. Other considerations weigh in the assessment of available options. In this case, the search for novelty prevailed, allowing for the victory of an ‘outsider’. In Ecuador, outsiders have a long track record of success.

  While the winning candidate represents the right in terms of his values and models, discursively he presents himself as a renovator, much more pragmatic than ideological. This blurring of ideological content is not a unique feature of this particular candidate, but expresses a deeper process of transformation of representation in a context in which rhetoric has been emptied of content as a result of practices blatantly contradicting discourse.

  People voted overwhelmingly for a candidate who managed to inspire their trust, whose traits set him apart from the polarised competition proposed by more ideological candidates. They looked for someone who offered alternatives not only to address security issues but also to tackle issues of economic recovery and welfare.

  The result was also influenced by the expectations of specific audiences such as young people, who make up a major part of the electoral roll. This part of the electorate sought options for the future detached from the conflicts between those who are ultimately responsible for the crisis in which we are now immersed. In this sense, right-wing and left-wing ideological narratives were equally punished, as evidenced by the fact that all traditional parties lagged behind in the election results.

  Why did defeated candidate Luisa González lose, despite having a stronger party structure?

  A key factor in Luisa González’s defeat in the runoff was the weight of the figure of former president Rafael Correa as the symbol and leader of the Citizen Revolution movement. This leadership, which offers the movement a captive electorate of around 25 per cent, also creates a ceiling that, in a polarised competition between Correism and anti-Correism, does not allow the candidate to surpass the 50 per cent required to win in the runoff. The same polarisation strategy that gave Correa’s government the strength to push its agendas has reduced her chances of attracting an electorate that is not part of the party’s hardcore vote.

  The revanchist narratives of Correism, expressed in the motto ‘neither forgive nor forget’, also undermined González’s support. The appeal to a return to the past reaffirmed the party’s base, but prevented it winning the votes of a broader electorate that distrusts the authoritarian tendencies of Correism and feared that the triumph of his candidate would translate into restrictions on civic space, particularly on freedom of association.

  What are civil society’s expectations of the new administration?

  While the president-elect does not have a history of resistance to civil society participation, during the campaign he was not particularly open to receiving proposals from and meeting with civil society groups. This creates uncertainty about how broad and effective spaces for civil society participation in public policy design and implementation will be. In principle, there are no clear threats to civic space, but there is uncertainty regarding the new government’s position on the promotion and strengthening of civil society.

  It is worth noting that the two second-round competitors had a conservative bias beyond their ideological leanings to the right or left. Hence the uncertainty as to how the new president will respond to social demands from the gender equality agendas of feminist groups and the LGBTQI+ community, the demands of the Indigenous movement regarding plurinationality and interculturality, and the concerns of the human rights movement regarding the search for policies to tackle crime that do not sacrifice rights.

  What is certain is that there is a huge number of problems that the new government will have to address. To sustain its initiatives beyond the one and a half years of his term in office, the new president will need to make a broad call for action and produce a basic agenda endorsed by national multi-stakeholder agreements. Policies on security, labour – with an emphasis on youth employment under a model of intergenerational inclusion – and combating chronic child malnutrition will be indispensable. The so-called Democracy Code, the 2009 law that establishes the electoral system, the management of elections and the requirements for the functioning and financing of political parties and movements, must also be reformed.

  Do you think this election put an end to political instability?

  The instability is not over, but the election provided a temporary and short-lived escape valve for the tensions of the multi-dimensional crisis affecting Ecuador. The government’s grace period, however, will be very limited: it will have to produce measures in the short term that show it’s on the way to resolving major problems.

  Two things could work against it: the slowness of the bureaucratic apparatus to develop transformative projects and the power struggle that could block its initiatives in the National Assembly. The relationship between the executive and legislative branches will be key. If the executive once again finds itself blocked by a multitude of special interests demanding perks to enable the approval of its initiatives, the crisis will again deepen.

  Civic space in Ecuador is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with Fundación Esquel through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow @FundacionEsquel onInstagram andTwitter.

• ECUADOR: ‘The new government must dialogue and seek political agreements that are public, not under the table’

  CIVICUS discusses the results of the 15 October runoff vote in Ecuador’s presidential election with Ruth Hidalgo, executive director of Participación Ciudadana (Citizen Participation).

  Participación Ciudadana is a non-partisan and pluralist civil society organisation (CSO) that works to strengthen democracy in Ecuador.

  How did organised crime violence affect the electoral process?

  The electoral process that just ended has been marked by political violence: a presidential candidate, a mayor and a prefect were assassinated. There has also been a climate of violence on the streets due to the actions of drug gangs, who extort protection money known as ‘vaccines’ from the public and uses it to finance organised crime groups.

  This made the issue of security one of the central topics in the debate between the second round candidates, and one that has generated the highest expectations.

  The two candidates’ proposals, however, were broadly similar, although with some differences in tone and characteristics of their own. Both aimed to strengthen the presence of the armed forces as co-executors alongside the police of anti-crime policies.

  How do you interpret the triumph of a centre-right alternative?

  This was not necessarily an ideological vote. The weakness of political parties in Ecuador means that ideology is losing strength. For some time now, the country has been debating not between right and left but between Correism and anti-Correism: it is the controversial legacy of former president Rafael Correa, in power for a decade between 2007 and 2017, which continues to polarise Ecuadorian society.

  The winning candidate, business leader Daniel Noboa, represents at least by his origins a centre-right option. But if he has won, it is because he has managed to capture the votes of a young electorate that is not on either side of the polarisation and has rather opted for a new vision, a young candidate with no political baggage who offers a form of politics that, unlike that of his predecessors, is not confrontational.

  What factors worked against the candidacy of Luisa González?

  Correa’s candidate, Luisa González, was hurt by the constant presence of Correa during most of the campaign, which ended up overshadowing her candidacy. Although in the end she tried to distance herself from that influence, she did not manage to position herself as a renewed Correist option, which is what she should have conveyed in order to have a chance of winning. She remained stuck to the worn-out and questioned political image of the former president.

  I believe that the element of Correa’s legacy that leads to the greatest rejection is his confrontational and threatening way of dealing with those he views as political enemies. This seems to be eliciting more and more discontent and disapproval. While the amount of support González received was not small, this set a ceiling for her that she was unable to break through. This was precisely the reason her opponent was able to prevail.

  How has the space for civil society evolved in recent years, and what can be expected under the new government?

  Civil society, in my opinion, has recovered its presence and freedom of action after Correa’s time in power, during which it was restricted and in some cases persecuted. Let’s not forget that an important environmental CSO, which confronted the government because of its extractivist policies, was arbitrarily shut down and then legislation was passed to regulate the registration, operations and closure of CSOs at the government’s discretion, with the aim of removing those that bothered the government. Many civil society activists and journalists were criminalised for their work.

  The expectation of civil society under the new government is the same as always: to have an enabling environment that allows it to carry out its activities freely. We expect a government that protects and promotes freedom of association.

  What should be the priorities of the new president?

  It’s worth remembering that these were early elections called to elect President Guillermo Lasso’s successor after he used the ‘cross-death’ mechanism, dissolving congress to prevent it impeaching him, but simultaneously cutting his mandate short. This means Noboa will only serve as president for the rest of Lasso’s term: a mere 18 months, too little time for the many challenges he will face.

  The new president takes over a country plagued by insecurity and violence, with a high fiscal deficit, almost zero growth, very high unemployment rates and on top of that, one that is once again experiencing the El Niño climate phenomenon, with warming water currents that produce extreme weather events and record temperatures. These are all issues he will have to prioritise, with public policies aimed at mitigating the most important problems in the areas of the economy, climate change and public security. To do so, he will need to build a strong team and create spaces for dialogue and reconciliation. He will need to demonstrate openness to civil society and seek political agreements that are public, not under the table.

  Every election presents an opportunity. As always in a country with so many needs, expectations are high. The main task ahead for the new government is to strengthen Ecuador’s democracy, which will demand an enormous amount of work.

  Civic space in Ecuador is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with Participación Ciudadana through itswebsite orFacebook account, subscribe to itsYouTube channel and follow@participacionpc on Instagram and@ParticipacionPC and@RhidalgoPC on Twitter.

• ECUADOR: ‘Violence is linked to the deterioration of the living conditions of young people from low-income groups’

  CIVICUS speaks about the current crisis of violence in Ecuador with Mauro Cerbino, professor and researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) in Ecuador.

  Professor Cerbino’s research focuses on youth cultures and organisations and links between young people and violence.

  How did Ecuador become one of the most violent countries in Latin America?

  To understand the very complex context of violence in Ecuador, it is important to analyse the factors that have enabled this situation. In recent years there has been a great deterioration in the living conditions of young people from low-income groups. Education has lost meaning to them because it does not fulfil the purpose of offering meaningful alternatives and helping to improve their living conditions. The relationship between educators and learners has deteriorated and mutual trust has been lost.

  Further, due to the absence of public policies for urban young people, it was not detected that a process of impoverishment was taking place on the ground. This was not just about economic poverty, which was indeed recently exacerbated by the pandemic, but also symbolic poverty, linked to the lack of cultural and recreational spaces for people to have the opportunity to live a meaningful life.

  All this came on top of the problem of drug trafficking. As a result of Ecuador’s adoption of the US dollar as the currency in 2000, the criminal economy has grown greatly. Ecuador’s geographical position has also contributed to this: the country has seven ports, which has facilitated the export of drugs, particularly to Europe. The international criminal economy has found the right conditions to insert itself in Ecuador.

  The flourishing criminal economy offered adolescents and young people ever-greater opportunities for quick profits, while the state lost its capacity to create conditions for people to live meaningful lives in local communities. The appeal of criminal alternatives was accentuated by the rise of the aesthetics of drug trafficking, which strongly attracted young people because it offered them meaning in the form of recognition, social standing and the exercise of at least a small amount of power in a very hierarchical and fractured society. In a global context marked by the society of spectacle, necropolitics – the use of social and political power to dictate how some people may live and others must die – and the commodification and obsolescence of life and death, it became impossible for legal society to compete with the seductive power of criminal organisations.

  Finally, the action of criminal groups is also a symptom that the social contract is in question. These groups, their families and close circles view the state and legal society as illegitimate. For them, violent crimes, particularly murder, are wrongs to be judged by God but not by the laws of the state or by other people. Guilt for violent acts can be assumed in the face of the divine, but this doesn’t mean accepting responsibility to other people or institutions. This is the state’s greatest failure in projecting itself as governed by the rule of law, a guarantor of coexistence based on legality.

  In sum, the security crisis in Ecuador responds to a combination of factors, among which the conditions experienced by children and young people stand out. Any effective response will therefore need to break with the individualistic logic and rebuild the community – through education, art, dialogue and culture – to confer meaning on the lives of so many young people who currently don’t care whether they live, kill or die.

  How has the recent change of government affected this situation?

  The perception of insecurity was one of the most debated issues in the last election campaign, which brought Daniel Noboa, a young man from a business family in Guayaquil, to the presidency. The debate was strongly securitised, focusing on police and military reaction and the imposition of penalties and punishments.

  Noboa was elected in October 2023 to complete the term of his predecessor, Guillermo Lasso, and will only be in office for about a year and a half. With people increasingly concerned about insecurity, the president responded to the violence triggered by prison riots by declaring a state of emergency and imposing a 60-day curfew. These measures were also possibly intended to boost his popularity and improve his government’s rating in view of next year’s elections, in which he has expressed his intention to run.

  In declaring a state of emergency, the government handed over the coordination of public order operations to the military. The stance taken by the government, which has referred to the situation as a state of internal war, has been echoed by the mainstream media and apparently endorsed by broad segments of public opinion. In the face of this, the political opposition has remained virtually silent. The largest opposition party, Citizen Revolution, led by former president Rafael Correa, has practically bought into the government’s decisions to avoid isolation as much as out of an inability to propose alternatives.

  How have people reacted to the proposed referendum to legitimise stricter security measures?

  The majority of public opinion will likely support all the security-related decisions being taken by the government, partly because people have experienced insecurity first hand, but also and primarily because of the insistent media narrative on the issue and its amplification through social media. All private media have broadcast demonstrations in favour of military and police presence on the streets.

  The questions for the referendum are currently being studied by the Constitutional Court, which has not yet ruled on their admissibility. Most of the questions refer to insecurity. If the referendum proceeds as planned, the majority will likely support the government. This is because there has been virtually no public discussion of other ways of dealing with insecurity, despite decades of a security-based approach producing little result.

  However, there are other ways of understanding security. As early as 1994, the United Nations put forward the notion of human security, while the Organization of American States developed the concept of multidimensional security in 2003. Both put human beings at the centre and take into account the links between security problems and structural social conditions of injustice, inequality and lack of conditions for the exercise of rights.

  Do you think Noboa could become the next Bukele?

  The so-called ‘Bukele model’ – based on the repressive response to violence of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele – appears to be popular in many countries, particularly those ruled by the right or the far right. In the case of Ecuador, I think some of the measures implemented in El Salvador will be replicated. For example, President Noboa has decided to build two maximum-security mega-prisons.

  But the model is not entirely applicable because these are countries with different geopolitical characteristics and different criminological situations. In El Salvador the problem is gangs, while in Ecuador it is organised crime. Further, at least for the moment, Ecuador’s constitution includes strong guarantees of rights, while these have been greatly eroded in El Salvador over several years of Bukele’s rule.

  To what extent is this crisis of violence a transnational problem, and what kind of international support has Ecuador received to address it?

  The problem of drug trafficking is transnational and global. It involves organisations, such as mafias and cartels, that are distributed around the world. It requires effective inter-state cooperation to combat it.

  Some countries, such as the USA, have offered support to Ecuador, but we know that these offers hide international policy interests that are not always explicit. The European Union has also expressed its willingness to provide assistance, but so far it’s not clear what this assistance will consist of. More and more cases of corruption and collusion of parts of the Ecuadorian state with organised crime are coming to light, which obviously hampers international cooperation with the Ecuadorian state.

  In any case, international cooperation must commit to addressing the structural problems that contribute to violence. It is essential that it contributes to strengthening social policy.

  ---

  Civic space in Ecuador is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with FLACSO Ecuador through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow it onTwitter andInstagram.

• HAITI: ‘The international community has never addressed the root causes of the crisis’

  CIVICUS speaks with Nixon Boumba, a human rights activist and member of Kolektif Jistis Min nan Ayiti (Haiti Justice in Mining Collective), about the political situation in Haiti following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Formed in 2012, Haiti Justice in Mining Collective is a movement of Haitian civil society organisations, individuals and partners pushing for transparency and social and environmental justice in the face of growing international interest in Haiti’s mining sector. It educates affected communities on the consequences of mining in five areas: the environment, water, work, agriculture and land.

• Joint Statement: Dozens killed in Nicaragua by state repression of protests

  Spanish

  STATEMENT / More than 300 national and international NGOs condemn the violent repression of the demonstrations held in Nicaragua against the #INSS reforms: https://t.co/XAoeFpMceT #SOSNicaragua #FuerzaNicaragua

  — IM-Defensoras (@IM_Defensoras) April 27, 2018

  We hereby condemn the violent repression of the demonstrations held in Nicaragua against the Social Security reforms, and we demand respect for the legitimate right to protest of Nicaraguan women and men

  Daniel Ortega, President of the Republic of Nicaragua.

  Rosario Murillo, Vice President of the Republic of Nicaragua.

  We, 323 undersigned national, diverse regional and international organizations and networks, hereby condemn the violent repression of the demonstrations held in Nicaragua against the Social Security reforms, and we demand respect for the legitimate right to protest of Nicaraguan women and men.

  Since Wednesday the 18th April, organizations, networks and human rights defenders in Nicaragua have been documenting and denouncing multiple violations of the right to hold peaceful protests, that include: murders, disappearances, arbitrary detentions, physical aggressions; the use of stones, sticks, rubber bullets, and tear gas; threats, acts of intimidation and the infringement of the right to information; in the context of the demonstrations that were organised in response to the Government’s imposition of the Social Security reforms that involve cuts of 5% in pensions, as well as other measures that affect the fundamental rights of Nicaraguan women and men.

  As has been verified, these attacks are being perpetrated by State security forces that repress the population with excessive use of force, and by groups of civilians linked to the Juventud Sandinista (Sandinista Youth Movement) who are acting with total impunity, and with the complicity and consent of the police, causing outbreaks of violence that have already claimed the lives of at least 40 people.1

  Another matter of grave concern are the violations of the right to freedom of expression, manifested in the theft of journalists' professional equipment, assaults and acts of intimidation during repressive actions and the shutting down of the transmission, through digital cable service, of 100% Noticias, channel 12 and channel 23 that were covering the protests.

  These attacks violate the right to freedom of assembly and to peaceful association, the right to freedom of opinion and expression of the Nicaraguan people, and their right to defend the social rights that are threatened by the Social Security reforms that the Government seeks to impose.

  This situation is not an isolated case; in recent times, numerous acts have been documented that infringe the right to social protest - by restricting people’s freedom of movement, through campaigns of criminalization, threats and harassment against organizations and human rights’ defenders, or through the closure of communication spaces, and many other actions that threaten democracy and the human rights of Nicaraguan women and men.

  In the light of the above, we, the organizations and individual signatories to this letter, demand the following actions from the Nicaraguan State:

  • The immediate cease of repression and violence carried out by armed forces, the police and groups of civilians linked to the government. The authorities must fulfil their duty to guarantee Nicaraguan women’s and men’s right to social protest
  • The release of detainees in different parts of the country. Guarantees must be provided that no criminal action will be taken against them.
  • An inclusive national dialogue process, securing the participation and involvement of different sectors that have movilized, victims, networks and civil society organizations, as well as representatives from diverse social movements
  • Respect for the work carried out by human rights defenders, journalists and the media.

  Sincerely yours,

  1. Abogadas y Abogados para la Justicia y los Derechos Humanos

  2. Abriendo Camino A.C.

  3. Académicas en Acción Critica

  4. Acción Solidaria

  5. ACCSI Acción Ciudadana Contra el SIDA

  6. Agrupación Ciudadana por la Despenalización del aborto - El Salvador

  7. AIETI Asociacion de Investigación y Especialización sobrecTemas Iberoamericanos

  8. Aireana, grupo por los derechos de las lesbianas. Asunción. PARAGUAY

  9. Akahata A.C.

  10. Alianza Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Juventudes

  11. Alianza Regional por la Libre Expresión e Información

  12. American Jewish World Service

  13. Americas Program, Center for International Policy

  14. Amigas en Consejos de Desarrollo AMICODE

  15. AMUMRA - Asociación Civil de Derechos Humanos Mujeres Unidas Migrantes y Refugiadas en Argentina

  16. ANC- Peru

  17. Andrea Kraybill Art

  18. APADEIM

  19. APRODEH

  20. Arte para Sanar

  21. Articulação de Mulheres Brasileiras

  22. Asamblea Feminista de Madrid

  23. Asistencia Legal por Derechos Humanos A.C.

  24. Asociación Andaluza por la Solidaridad y la Paz (ASPA)

  25. Asociación Bolivarianos Diversos

  26. Asociación Cepres

  27. Asociación Ciudadana ACCEDER

  28. Asociación Ciudadana por los Derechos Humanos de Argentina

  29. Asociacion Civil De Mujeres Resilientes

  30. Asociación Civil Magdalenas Puerto Madryn

  31. Asociacion de Mujeres Salvadoreñas en Accion del Barrio San Jacinto AMSAB-SJ

  32. Asociación de jóvenes feministas Ameyalli, El Salvador

  33. Asociación Educativa Barbiana

  34. Asociación Entre Amigos LGBTI de El Salvador

  35. Asociación Interamericana para la Defensa del Ambiente, AIDA (Regional)

  36. Asociacion Interpueblos-Cantabria-España

  37. Asociación para una sociedad más justa

  38. Asociación para una vida mejor (Apuvimeh)

  39. Asociación Paz y Esperanza

  40. ASOCIACIÓN PRO DEFENSA DE LA CUENCA DEL RÍO JUAN DÍAZ

  41. Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España

  42. Associação brasileira de defesa da mulher da infância e da juventude

  43. ATTAC Roanne

  44. AvanzaFem AC

  45. Balance Promoción para el Desarrollo y Juventud, México

  46. Beso Diverso

  47. Bilboko Bilgune Feminista

  48. BILGUNE FEMINISTA (Euskal Herria-Pais Vasco)

  49. Bordamos Feminicidios (México)

  50. Both ENDS

  51. Brigada UNE

  52. Calala Fondo de Mujeres

  53. Campaña 28 de Septiembre - Guatemala

  54. Campaña Convención DSYDR Peru

  55. Campo A.C.

  56. Canas Dignas

  57. Capital Humano y Social Alternativo - CHS Alternativo

  58. CASACIDN

  59. Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir - España

  60. Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir – México

  61. CENDEROS

  62. Centro de Acción y Defensa por los Derechos Humanos - Cadef

  63. Centro de análisis, formación e iniciativa social, CAFIS A.C.

  64. Centro de Derechos de Mujeres CDM

  65. Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan

  66. Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (CDH-UCAB)

  67. Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad Metropolitana (CDH-UNIMET)

  68. Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Francisco de Vitoria OP, A.C. (México)

  69. Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Matías de Córdova (Chiapas, México)

  70. Centro de Documentación en Derechos Humanos "Segundo Montes Mozo S.J." (CSMM)

  71. Centro de Estudios e Investigación sobre Mujeres

  72. CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS HUMANISTAS - Costa Rica

  73. Centro de estudios y capacitación familiar. Cefa

  74. Centro de Iniciativas para la Cooperación Batá (CIC Batá)

  75. Centro de Investigación para la Prevención de la Violencia en Centroamérica – CIPREVICA

  76. Centro de Investigaciones para la Equidad Política Pública y Desarrollo, CIPE.

  77. Centro de Sanación, Formación e Investigación Transpersonal Q'anil

  78. Centro Documentación e Información Bolivia-CEDIB-

  79. Centro Hermanas Mirabal de Derechos Humanos A.C.

  80. Centro Para el Desarrollo Integral de la Mujer

  81. Centro para la Paz y los DDHH de la Universidad Central de Venezuela

  82. Centro por la Justicia y el Derecho Internacional (CEJIL)

  83. Cepaz - Centro de Justicia y Paz

  84. CEPROSAF

  85. CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation

  86. Civilis Derechos Humanos

  87. CLADEM ARGENTINA (Comité de América Latina y el Caribe para la Defensa de los Derechos de las Mujeres)

  88. CLADEM Bolivia

  89. Cladem Nicaragua

  90. Coalicion Todas

  91. Codhez

  92. Codice, Jalisco

  93. Colectiva Actoras de Cambio

  94. Colectiva Amorales

  95. Colectiva Ciudad y Género AC

  96. Colectiva con Letra F (México)

  97. Colectiva Chancha Negra

  98. Colectiva de Mujeres de Masaya

  99. Colectiva Femimista

  100. Colectiva Sororidad Glocal

  101. Colectivas lesbicas

  102. Colectivo de Abogados "José Alvear Restrepo" (Ccajar), Colombia

  103. Colectivo de Mujeres de Matagalpa Nicaragua

  104. Colectivo de Mujeres Sobrevivientes Siempre Resistentes – Chile

  105. Colectivo de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores Sociales de Honduras (CTS-H)

  106. Colectivo de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras de Honduras

  107. Colectivo Estudiantil Pro Derechos Humanos del Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas

  108. Colectivo Josefa Lastiri

  109. Colectivo para la Participación de la Infancia y Juventud

  110. Colectivo PSG

  111. Colectivo Trans del Uruguay

  112. Colectivo Utopía Puebla

  113. Collectif Guatemala

  114. Comisión de Derechos Humanos de Ica

  115. Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos del Estado Monagas de la Federación de Colegios de Abogados de Venezuela

  116. Comité Ambiental en Defensa de la Vida (Colombia).

  117. Comité de América Latina y el Caribe para la Defensa de los Derechos de las Mujeres (CLADEM)

  118. Comité de America Latina y el Caribe para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (CLADEM- Mexico)

  119. Comité por los derechos humanos en América latina (CDHAL)

  120. Comunidad de familiares y amigos por los Derechos Humanos de la Diversidad Sexual COFADHIS

  121.Comunidad Xinka

  122.Concertación Interamericana de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres

  123.Consejo de Mujeres Cristianas

  124. Consejo tiyat tlali

  125. Consorcio para el Diálogo Parlamentario MX

  126. Consorcio para el Diálogo Parlamentario y la Equidad Oaxaca AC

  127. ControlaTuGobierno, A.C.

  128. CONVERGENCIA DE LAS CULTURAS - Costa Rica

  129. Convite A.C.

  130. Cooperacció

  131. Coordinación de Mujeres del Paraguay

  132. Coordinadora 28 de Mayo - Guatemala

  133. Coordinadora Estatal de Organizaciones Feministas

  134. Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos - Perú

  135. Coordinadora Norte Tierra y Libertad - Costa Rica

  136. Córdoba Solidaria

  137. Count Me In! Consortium

  138. Cuerpas Creando Comunidad

  139. Cuerpas Sin Reglas

  140. CuidaTuEspcio 

  141. Defiende Venezuela

  142. Derechos Humanos

  143. Ditsö- Costa Rica

  144. Ecologistas en Acción (España)

  145. Elige Red de Jóvenes por los Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos AC

  146. Ellas por la igualdad AC

  147. Epistemologías del Sur: Red de pensamiento crítico, respecto de los derechos humanos, la dinámica educativa y el territorio

  148. Equidad de Género, Ciudadanía, Trabajo y Familia

  149. Equipo de Reflexión, Investigación y Comunicación de la Compañía de Jesús en Honduras

  150. Escritorio Juridico Gutierrez Ceballos

  151. Espacio DESCA

  152. Espacio Público - Venezuela

  153. Espiral hacia la Igualdad

  154. Estancia del Migrante González y Martínez, A.C. (Querétaro, México)

  155. Estudiantes por una Política Sensata de Drogas, Costa Rica.

  156. EXCUBITUS derechos humanos en educacion.

  157. Existir al caminar A.C.

  158. Feministas en Marcha - Puerto Rico

  159. Feministas Independientes

  160. FIA capitulo Venezuela Seccional Anzoategui

  161. Fondo Apthapi Jopueti Bolivia

  162. Fondo CAMY

  163. Fondo de Acción Urgente para América Latina y el Caribe FAU-AL

  164. FONDO LUNARIA MUJER COLOMBIA

  165. Foro de Jóvenes con Liderazgo AC

  166. Free Press Unlimited

  167. FRENTE COOPERATIVO Y DE ECONOMÍA SOCIAL - Costa Rica

  168. Frente por los Derechos Igualitarios

  169. FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund

  170. FRONT LINE DEFENDERS

  171. Fronteras

  172. FUNBIDE

  173. Fundación Acceso

  174. Fundación Arcoiris por el respeto a la diversidad sexual.

  175. Fundación CAUCE, Cultura Ambiental - Causa Ecologista. Paraná. Argentina

  176. Fundación Colectivo Hombres XX, A. C.

  177.  Fundacion PANIAMOR

  178.  Fundación para el Debido Proceso (DPLF)

  179. Fundacion para el Desarrollo Comunitario-FUNDECOM

  180. Fundación para el Desarrollo de la Libertad Ciudadana

  181. Fundación salvadoreña por la diversidad sexual de la Mano Contigo

  182. FUNDECOM

  183. Global Fund for Women

  184. Grupo de Accion Comunitaria. Madrid. Estado Español

  185. Grupo de Educación Popular con Mujeres A.C.

  186. Grupo Visión Nocturna Uruguay

  187. Guatemala citizen

  188. Guatemaltecas por la Defensa del Estado Laico (GDEL)

  189.Hivos

  190. Iacta Sociojuridica SCCLP

  191.ILGALAC

  192. IMDEC AC

  193. INCIDIR, A.C.

  194. Ingeniería Sin Fronteras Aragón

  195. Iniciativas de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo

  196. Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights

  197. Instituto Caribeño de Derechos Humanos (ICADH)

  198. Instituto de Enseñanza para el Desarrollo Sostenible

  199. Instituto Sur Andino de Investigación y Acción Solidaria-ISAIAS

  200. IRC WASH

  201. JAKILU

  202. JASS-JUST ASSOCIATES/ASOCIADAS POR LO JUSTO

  203. Jóvenes Voceras y Voceros en DSDR, El Salvador.

  204. Juntos por la Vida

  205. Justice and Peace Netherlands 206.Kallpachay Suyu. Ambiente y cultura.

  207. Kentucky Interfaith Taskforce on Latin America and the Caribbean

  208. La Cabaretiza AC

  209. La Casa Mandarina AC

  210. LA COMUNIDAD PARA EL DESARROLLO HUMANO - Costa Rica

  211. Laboratorio de la Máscara

  212. Las Reinas Chulas cabaret y derechos humanos A.C.

  213.Lesbocolectivo las Resueltas

  214. LeSVOZ, AC

  215. Los siempre sospechosos de todo

  216. Mama Cash

  217. Maquila Solidarity Network

  218. MARCHA CENTROAMERICANA POR LA PAZ Y LA NO VIOLENCIA

  219. Margens Clínicas - São Paulo/ Brasil

  220. Marxa Mundial de Dones

  221. Memoria de mujeres

  222. Momundh

  223. Movimiento Autónomo de Mujeres de Nicaragua

  224. Movimiento de Mujeres de Chinandega

  225. Movimiento de Mujeres de Santo Tomás

  226. Movimiento de Mujeres Visitación Padilla

  227. Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano

  228. Movimiento Vinotinto

  229. Mujer Ideas Desarrollo e Investigación

  230. Mujer y salud en Uruguay MYSU

  231. Mujeres Ambientalistas, El Salvador.

  232. Mujeres de Izabal

  233. Mujeres de Negro Rosario – Argentina

  234. Mujeres Integradas en el Oeste de Rosario Argentina

  235.Mujeres Trabajadoras Unidas, A.C

  236. MUNDO SIN GUERRAS Y SIN VIOLENCIA - Costa Rica

  237. Ni Una Menos

  238. NIMD

  239. Observatorio Etico Caribe y América Central – Obetica

  240. Observatorio Ético Internacional – OBETI

  241. Observatorio Venezolano de Conflictividad Social (OVCS)

  242. ODASA

  243. OFICINA JURIDICA PARA LA MUJER

  244. OMCT - Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura

  245. Organización de Mujeres Tierra Viva

  246. OTRANS ARGENTINA

  247. Otros Mundos A.C./Amigos de la Tierra México

  248. Paro Internaciónal se Mujeres, Polonia

  249. Partido Feminista de España

  250. PARTIDO HUMANISTA - Costa Rica

  251. Perifèries del Món

  252. Pikara Magazine (País Vasco-España)

  253. Plataforma Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, Democracia y Desarrollo PIDHDD

  254. Plataforma Internacional contra la Impunidad

  255. Plataforma Salvadoreña de juventudes

  256. Plazandreok

  257. Please remove signature of Kentucky Interfaith Taskforce

  258. Presencia y Palabra: Mujeres Afroperuanas

  259. Pro-Búsqueda

  260. Profesionales católicos - Piura - Perú

  261. Proiuris

  262. PROMEDEHUM (Venezuela)

  263. Radio Stereo Vos

  264.Radioexpresion

  265. Reacción Climática - Bolivia

  266. Red Con Las Amigas Y En La Casa

  267. Red de Activistas Ciudadanos por los DDHH

  268. Red de Ambientalistas Comunitarios de El Salvador RACDES

  269. Red de la No Violencia contra las Mujeres - REDNOVI

  270. Red de mujeres contra la violencia

  271. Red de salud de las Mujeres Latinoamericanas y del Caribe

  272. Red Internacional de Migración y Desarrollo

  273. Red Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Jóvenes por los Derechos Sexuales RedLAC

  274. Red Nacional Coincidir

  275. Red Nacional de Defensoras de Derechos Humanos en Honduras

  276. Red Para la Infancia y la Adolescencia de El Salvador (RIA)

  277. Red Solidaria de Derechos Humanos A.C. (Michoacán, México)

  278. REDLAMYC Red latinoamericana y caribeña que lucha por los derechos de niñas niños y adolescentes

  279. REDMUCH

  280. Refugee and Immigrant Fund (RIF)

  281. Resonar

  282. RESURJ Realizando la Justicia Sexual

  283. Revista SIC del Centro Gumilla

  284. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights

  285. Roma National Center from Moldova

  286. Schone Kleren Campagne

  287. Schumacher College

  288. Sector de Mujeres

  289. Seguridad en Democracia (SEDEM)

  290. Semillas de Nuestra Tierra, AC

  291. Sol de primavera

  292. Sombrilla Costa Rica

  293. SOS Corpo- Instituto Feminista para a Democracia - Recife/ Pernambuco -Brasil

  294. Spatium Libertas AC

  295. SPW

  296. St Williams church

  297. Stichting Lleca (Holanda)

  298. Strajk Kobiet Polonia

  299. SURKUNA - Centro de apoyo y protección de derechos humanos

  300. Sursiendo, Comunicación y Cultura Digital AC

  301. Swefor Guatemala

  302. Tequio jurídico

  303. Todas Mx

  304. Trabajadora del retail

  305. Transparencia Venezuela

  306. Uganda Youth Alliance For Family Planning And Adolescents Health -UYAFPAH

  307. Unidad de Protección a Defensoras y Defensores de Derechos Humanos - Guatemala (UDEFEGUA)

  308. Unidas Somos Tendencia

  309. Union global por la democracia

  310. Unión Latinoamericana de Mujeres ULAM

  311. Unitierra

  312. Universidad de la Tierra en Puebla

  313. Urgent Action Fund- Latin America and the Caribbean

  314. UXU EMAKUMEEN TALDEA

  315. Vecinas Feministas por la Justicia Sexual y Reproductiva en América Latina y el Caribe

  316. Voces de mujeres, historias que transforman

  317. Voces Mesoamericanas, Acción con Pueblos Migrantes A.C.

  318. WECF International

  319. Witness for Peace

  320. WO=MEN Dutch Gender Platform

  321. WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America)

  322. Women Advocacy and Development Initiative (WADI)

  323. Women Strike Polonia

  1 Source: Nicaraguan Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IN-Defensoras)

• New Report: Civic Space in the Americas

  People’s rights to organise, speak out and take action are being extensively violated in a large number of countries in the Americas. This is according to new research by global civil society alliance CIVICUS, the Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC), the Charity and Security Network, the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy (REDLAD) and the Rendir Cuentas initiative. Our findings are based on data from the CIVICUS Monitor, a new research collaboration to track and compare civic freedoms on a global scale.