Photo: Anna Vogt
New report: Displacement is rising in Latin America
Latin America was not exempt from the report’s purview, however; in fact, the IDMC reported that the region has experienced a 12 percent increase in displacement since last year. Putting a finer point on the data, the organization reported that just under half a million Latin Americans are newly displaced, bringing the total regional displacement statistic to “at least seven million.” Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru were among the countries deemed most problematic, with Colombia highlighted as especially vulnerable.
Perspectives on drug policy reform
In the lead up to the 2016 Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS 2016) studies and opinions are piling up.
They’re like ‘Circus Animals’: Mexico’s Drug Lords and Other Prison Problems
So for the most part, most people who are in prison are those who were caught in the act. They were caught robbing something on the street. Those are who most of the inmates are. Poor people involved in theft. I don’t want to say that there aren’t important criminals in prison, there are. But proportionally, there’s very few in relation with the entire penal population. The truth is, much of the crimes — the more important crimes — remain unresolved. For example, 90 percent of the homicides that we saw under Calderon and during the first two years of this administration — 90 percent of those haven’t been resolved.
Schools shutting out US-educated Mexicans back home
The 2010 Mexican census identified 597,000 US-born children living in Mexico. The next census, out later this year, is expected to see a significant rise in those numbers. Children need birth certificates and documents that prove their level of education, and they have to be translated and stamped in such a way that the Mexican authorities accept them. But parents are left to their own devices to navigate a complex situation, said Kuhner.
El Salvador gangs target police after failed truce
Cotto said that more must be done for the country’s most marginalized and that the national police — along with community police, private business and local government — must investigate the underlying causes of violence and crime. Last week a senior official proposed a law for the reintegration of gang members into mainstream society. In exchange for agreeing to abandon criminal activity, they would be offered economic support. However, police officers have been given a clear message: shoot criminals without fear of consequences. “This institution and the government will protect you,” said Police Chief Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde in January after the killing of seven officers in just over two weeks at the beginning of the year.
Fear, uncertainty prevail on San Salvador’s increasingly violent streets
“We are stuck in a bubble which is called El Salvador and which is totally violent,” he said, adding that most people, both ordinary citizens and officials, are too afraid to describe what is really happening for fear of retaliation from gang members. Ticas explained the police, the criminal investigators and the country’s institutions are all under attack as the gangs fight for territory and power. He said the gangs are growing stronger not weaker: “weapons, members, technology, organization — they have so much.” A series of grenade attacks on police stations, as well as the murder of police officers and soldiers, have demonstrated the gangs’ growing confidence.
This Nicaraguan woman answers sexism with spraypaint
Nicaraguan curator Juanita Bermudez remembers the “golden age” of street art during the Sandinista revolution of the 1980s. “The government supported murals as art forms, and people saw them as celebratory,” she says.“Graffiti is another language.” For women to be graffiti artists is even more remarkable, Bermudez says, “because in the past, it was considered a man’s occupation. It’s beautiful that women have the same impulse,” she says, adding that it’s proof that Nicaraguan society is evolving its conservative ideas about gender roles.
President of Honduras Offers Conflicting Messages on Police Militarization
Swapping the military for police often leads to cases of torture, murder, assault and other abuses – these soldiers are taught to use whatever tactics necessary to defeat “the enemy.” This strategy also lacks the investigative aspect that would be necessary to prosecute crimes and stem crime and violence in the long term. In Honduras, the increased, veiled funds to the PMOP, has diverted resources away from civilian police reform, which appears relatively stalled. A special law is even in place preventing the Attorney General’s regular prosecutors from carrying out investigations and prosecutions for PMOP soldiers.
Haiti has a complex, bureaucratic land registry, as well as weak rule of law. It is very difficult for Haitians to prove a viable land title or get due process if their land is seized. On Île-à-Vache, Mesura and his wife are among the many residents who saw their property — land that they thought they owned — expropriated by the state in the initial phase of the development project. Frustrated that they weren’t being consulted about the seizures or about the tourism plans in general, residents sought to disrupt the project through a series of protests in December 2013. Since the conflicts over land erupted, private developers seem hesitant to break ground on the island, according to the mayor and one interested businessman.
5 years after the quake: Adequate housing still a distant dream for many Haitians
while much capital has been expended to try to address this situation and several hundreds of persons have benefitted from efforts made by private institutions and local partners – including many funded by CWS and MCC – it remains inconvertible that adequate, dignified and safe housing remains but a distant dream for too many of Haiti’s poorest people. Indeed, insufficient housing had long been one of Haiti’s most acute challenges; the destruction caused by the earthquake merely exacerbated these.
Last flight looms for US-funded air war on drugs as Colombia counts health cost
But after 20 years and 4m acres sprayed, Colombia now appears poised to make a dramatic about-face on what was once the keystone of its US-backed drug-fighting strategy. After the World Health Organisation’s cancer research arm found that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic”, the country’s health minister last week issued a recommendation that the government stop using the chemical in its aerial spraying programme.
Bolivia struggles with gender-based violence
The vast majority of domestic-violence complaints never reach trial in Bolivia, and of those that do, most never result in a sentence. The national newspaper La Razón reported last November that since Law 348 was passed there have been 206 cases of femicide, but only eight sentences — a conviction rate of just 4 percent. It’s difficult to find concrete statistics about how most cases play out, but attorney Teresa Torrico, who works with the legal-aid organization Women’s House in the Amazonian city of Santa Cruz, says that the overtaxed justice system leads many women to give up on their cases. This is in part a resource problem — there are only about 50 prosecutors in Bolivia who take on cases of violence against women, and they also work on human trafficking and child abuse. With so few prosecutors to go around, the burden of moving a case forward falls on victims and their families, requiring them to take time off work and spend money on transportation. Many people simply aren’t able to do either. “There is a very high percentage of cases that are just abandoned,” Torrico says.