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Press Release

TEGUCIGALPA ā€“ JASS (Just Associates) announced that an international delegation arrived in Honduras Monday for a week-long womenā€™s rights watch. The delegation is conducting a local and virtual Observatorio (Feminist Transformation Watch) from August 17 to 21 to shed light on women’s rights violations occurring under the de facto regime that overthrew the democratically elected president in a coup d’etat on June 28th.

The delegation comprises representatives of JASS, Honduran Feminists in Resistance, Las Petateras, Radio Feminista, Nobel Womenā€™s Initiative, and the Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and Equality, and includes human rights activists, researchers, legal experts and journalists from Central America, Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The purpose of the mission is to gather information, to denounce the coup, and to increase awareness of the impact of the crisis from the perspective of women.

Honduran women continue at the frontlines of pro-democracy actions and resistance against the de facto regime that ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Womenā€™s organizations are under surveillance and membersā€™ lives continue to be threatened as they practise non-violent resistance to the repression and demand a return to the rule of law, an end to violence, and respect for human rights.

A central imperative for democracy is that the perspectives and voices of Honduran women must be included in the resolution to the current crisis in that country. Systematic violations of womenā€™s rights can be traced back to the 1980s dictatorships, with the cycle of violence and oppression continuing today within a culture of impunity. In the current crisis of ruptured democracy, these systematic violations and abuses have increased. Without a commitment to breaking the impunity, there can be no sustainable democratic resolution in Honduras.

To document the human rights violations against Honduran women that have occurred since the coup on June 28th, the delegation is conducting interviews and collecting testimonials from Honduran women and organizations, and engaging in dialogue with feminists and other Honduran women about their strategies of resistance and their actions in response to the coup. This information will be disseminated through national, regional, and international media.

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