INITIATIVES OF OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS
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INITIATIVES OF OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS

CCARC Board Member Dr. Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj has served as a consultant and expert witness on issues of indigenous women and in cases of genocide and state violence in Guatemala.

 

She was an expert in the First Court of Conscience against Sexual Violence during the Armed Conflict; in the Sepur Zarco case, where Q’eqchi women demanded justice for the rape and enslavement they suffered at the hands of the Guatemalan military, and also in cases of sexual violence against Achi women; in the genocide case against Achi communities; in the CREOMPAZ case of Guatemala; and regarding the denial of access by indigenous peoples to own their community radios, among others. She has served as an adviser in the area of rights of women and indigenous peoples for UNWomen in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Indigenous Women’s Access to Land, Territory and Natural Resources in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2018

 

In 2018, Dra. Velásquez Nimatuj, together with Eileen Ford, carried out a study for the UNO Regional Office for Women on Access of Indigenous Women to land, territory and natural resources in Latin America and the Caribbean. In which it is addressed that access to land is one of the serious problems faced by rural and indigenous women in Latin America and the Caribbean.

 

They own less land, which is often of the worst quality, and tenure or possession is almost always insecure. They analyze through 11 collective cases how indigenous women in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Bolivia and Honduras face inequality in the distribution of land and extreme concentration of tenure in a few hands. As well as the lack of inclusion of redistribution programs that ignore indigenous women, even when they are heads of families.

 

Likewise, the use of sexual violence and terror by private companies or state security forces to forcibly evict indigenous women and their families in disputes over territories, lands and resources, where the immediate barrier They are the justice systems that partially act on their claims or deny them knowledge of the legal mechanisms available for the defense of their territories.

 

Other lines include difficulties in accessing credits for the production and improvement of their lands:

CCARC Board Member Joe Berra directs students on human rights advocacy projects at the
Promise Institute for Human Rights, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law.

 

The projects support the struggles of  Indigenous, Afro-descendant and Traditional communities to defend their territories and natural resources against extractivist projects.

Expert Report on the Right to Consultation and Free, Prior and Informed Consent, case of the Lenca community of Rio Blanco against Honduras and the Agua Zarca Hydroelectric Project, May 2017.

 

Berra and his students have been supporting the struggle of the Lenca people of Rio Blanco and that of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) against the Agua Zarca Hydroelectric Project since the murder of indigenous leader Berta Cáceres.

 

In support of their litigation before the Supreme Court of Justice of Honduras, they prepared an Expert Report on the Right to Consultation and Free, Prior and Informed Consent in International Law, applied to the Agua Zarca case, which was presented in May 2017:

Amicus Curiae, Case of the Administrative Board of Water and Sanitation of the
Community of Pajuiles Bajo against the Municipal Corporation of Tela, Department of Atlántida, in the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Honduras, March 2019.

 

In January 2019, students together with Berra carried out field work collecting testimonies and relevant information for the constitutional and human rights legal challenge presented by the Administrative Board of Water and Sanitation of the Community of Pajuiles Bajo against the Municipal Corporation of Tela for violation of their rights to water, health and a healthy environment in the concession and licensing of a hydroelectric project on the Pajuiles River, the only water source that supplies 26 communities with water for human consumption.

 

Subsequently, they presented an amicus curiae to the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Honduras in March 2019: