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A woman and her son at their home in the community of El Redondo, municipality of Trojes, Honduras, April 28, 2021.
© 2021 Gustavo Amador/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

(Tegucigalpa) – Honduras should take urgent steps to fight corruption, a structural problem that undermines human rights throughout the country, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper sent today to President Xiomara Castro and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. The ongoing negotiations to create a UN-backed commission – the Comisión Internacional contra la Corrupción e Impunidad en Honduras (CICIH, or International Commission against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras) – provide a unique opportunity to learn from past experience and make lasting progress.

June 9, 2023

Honduras Briefing: Strong Action Needed on Corruption

President Castro was elected on a human rights platform with a strong focus on fighting systemic corruption. Her administration signed a memorandum in December 2022 with the United Nations secretary-general to create the commission. In April 2023, President Castro agreed to the terms for a UN visit to lay the foundations of the commission.

“President Castro’s pledge to address corruption, in a region where those in power are increasingly being implicated in it, was a positive step,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “But it’s been over a year since she took office, and she needs to show the people of Honduras that she stands by her pledge.”

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reported in 2019 that cases of corruption had “proliferated” to “an extremely concerning degree” in Latin America and the Caribbean. Honduras ranked 157th out of 180 nations in the 2022 Corruption Perception Index released by Transparency International, positioning it below every other country in Latin America and the Caribbean, except for Nicaragua (167), Haiti (171), and Venezuela (177).

Systemic corruption can deprive the government of money to invest in health, education, clean water, housing, and other rights. It dangerously undermines essential government functions, distorts public accountability, and often leads to attacks on judicial independence and freedom of expression to prevent or undermine investigations by the justice system and news media.

In Honduras, Human Rights Watch reviewed the judicial files of 14 corruption investigations, and found strong links to human rights abuses in 12 of them. The corruption documented by prosecutors undermined the rights to food, health, and education, as well as Indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent regarding measures that may affect them, among other adverse consequences. Human Rights Watch also documented another case in which officials were implicated in corruption in the purchase of mobile hospitals. In the briefing paper, Human Rights Watch detailed four examples of corruption’s impact on human rights.

Eleven of these 15 cases were uncovered by the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), an international body created in 2016, in response to pressure from the Honduran public, by then-President Juan Orlando Hernández with the support of the Organization of American States. But resistance to its work from both the executive and legislative branches soon weakened the fight against corruption.

After its prosecutors exposed high-level corruption scandals, President Hernández declined to extend its mandate in 2020. Cut short, it was unable to push for much-needed legal reforms or to strengthen prosecutorial and judicial independence, which would have allowed the cases to move forward. After its dissolution, Honduran prosecutors who had worked for the international mission and continued under the orbit of the Attorney General’s Office lacked the resources and support it had provided.

Honduras’ legal framework includes laws that hinder the fight against corruption and reduce transparency and accountability, making it more difficult to prosecute corruption, as shown in some high-profile cases Human Rights Watch details in the briefing paper. A Congressional decree passed in 2021, for example, narrowed the criminal definition of money laundering, leading to the dismissal of many cases.

In Honduras, political parties have often interfered with the judicial system to further their own interests. Appointments of Supreme Court justices and the attorney general were negotiated behind closed doors, not based on merit but on political affinity.

An important step forward was a 2022 congressional reform of the selection process for Supreme Court justices that enabled transparency in the February 2023 selection of 15 new justices. The future of judicial independence in Honduras also depends on the quality of the process for selecting the next attorney general, after Attorney General Óscar Chinchilla’s five-year term expires on August 31. The process should be transparent and based on merit and clear criteria, Human Rights Watch said.

Anti-corruption experts Human Rights Watch interviewed emphasized the importance of designing the international commission to serve as a vehicle to strengthen local institutions. The commission’s work will be critical, but it should also help to build a strong, resilient Honduran anti-corruption and justice system capable of deterring, prosecuting, and punishing corruption in the long term.

The Castro administration should empower it to propose legislative reforms to strengthen the rule of law and the fight against corruption, and the president should commit to working with Congress to carry out these reforms, Human Rights Watch said. For the commission to succeed, it needs to be autonomous and independent, with a broad mandate to investigate and prosecute individual corruption cases and the authority to protect its Honduran and international staff from retaliation.

“If Honduras sets it up for success, the international commission could provide a regional model for fighting a scourge that undermines people’s rights and their ability to lead their daily lives in dignity throughout Latin America and the Caribbean,” Goebertus said. “President Castro and Secretary-General Guterres, with the support of the international community, have an opportunity to show that democracy and the rule of law can deliver.”

(Bishkek, June 9, 2023) – The Kyrgyz parliament should reject a highly repressive draft law that would interfere with the activities of nongovernmental organizations, Human Rights Watch said today. The law would require organizations to register with the Justice Ministry as “foreign representatives” if they receive funding from abroad and engage in political activity.

On May 19, 2023, parliament members registered Making Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Kyrgyz Republic for consideration, known as the draft law on “Foreign Representatives.” Failure to register under the law could result in suspension of the organization’s activities, including its banking operations, for up to 6 months or until it is registered. This requirement is clearly intended to discredit and stigmatize groups that receive foreign funding and could have a chilling effect on the country’s civil society at a time when it is already under attack.

“The draft law is incompatible with international human rights obligations, restricting freedom of association and expression, as well as introducing in some cases criminal liability for nongovernmental organizations and their staff members,” said Syinat Sultanalieva, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The draft law poses a serious threat to Kyrgyzstan’s vibrant civil society and should be withdrawn.”

The draft law’s vague and overbroad definition of political activity as “actions aimed at changing state policy and shaping public opinion for these purposes” poses a particular risk for civic activism in Kyrgyzstan, where increasingly freedom of association and freedom of expression have come under attack in the last year. These measures threaten to silence the voices of organizations that play a crucial role in promoting human rights, democracy, and social justice in Kyrgyzstan.

The draft law was initially submitted for public consideration in November 2022 by Nadira Narmatova, a government-aligned member of parliament, but later withdrawn. In May, 32 other members joined Narmatova as co-signers and it was resubmitted. They evidently disregarded concerns raised by experts and lawyers during the public consideration period.

The draft law also introduces the designation of foreign nongovernmental organizations – a concept new to Kyrgyzstan, defined as any nongovernmental organization established abroad that operates in Kyrgyzstan through its branches and representative offices. Such organizations must now also be registered.

The draft law expands reporting requirements for all nongovernmental organizations, both foreign branches and “foreign representatives.” They would annually be required to provide information about staff including their names and position, remuneration of each staff member, financial assets, and any property the group owns.

The draft law would grant the government significantly enhanced oversight powers, with representatives of the Justice Ministry allowed to participate in the internal activities of nongovernmental organizations to determine if they are consistent with the organization’s founding purpose. The ministry would also have the right to bar organizations operating in the country from receiving funds from foreign sources.

The draft law also introduces criminal liability – from a fine to up to 10 years in prison for establishing or participating in a nongovernmental organization that is found to be “inciting citizens to refuse to perform civic duties or to commit other unlawful deeds.”

National and international organizations in Kyrgyzstan have warned that the draft law is incompatible with the country’s international human rights obligations. In its Urgent Interim Opinion on the draft law published in December, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe underscored the risk of “stigmatizing certain organizations carrying out legitimate work, including advocacy and participation in public affairs, and potentially of triggering mistrust, fear and hostility against such organizations.” It described the draft law as needing “substantial and fundamental changes amounting to a complete redrafting” and urged the initiators not to pursue it further.

Legal experts have also noted the draft law is similar to the previous “foreign agents” bill that was introduced in 2013 and registered for parliamentary consideration in 2015. That bill passed the first reading with an overwhelming majority vote but was ultimately withdrawn because of pressure from civil society and the country’s international partners. Both the 2013 and current drafts were found to be similar to the Russian “foreign agents” law of 2012.

The draft law contradicts Kyrgyzstan’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Kyrgyzstan is a party. While certain limitations of the rights to freedom of expression and association are permissible under international law, they must be provided by a clear and accessible law and be necessary and proportionate to a legitimate aim. The current draft law does not meet this test and would impose undue restrictions on these rights, Human Rights watch said.

The right to seek, receive, and utilize resources from national, international, and foreign sources is an inherent part of the right to freedom of association. This has been established by numerous international and regional human rights mechanisms, including the UN Human Rights Committee, the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the ICCPR by its States parties.

Kyrgyzstan’s international partners, in particular the European Union, the United States, and the United Nations, should publicly express their concern about the negative consequences of the legislation and urge President Sadyr Japarov not to sign it into law should it pass the parliament.

The draft law is also inconsistent with Kyrgyzstan’s commitments to uphold its international human rights obligations at home and abroad, made in February 2023 when it became a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

“If passed, this draft law will have a chilling effect on Kyrgyzstan’s civil society organizations, limiting their ability to advocate for human rights, provide social services, and contribute to the development of a robust and inclusive society,” Sultanalieva said. “Kyrgyzstan’s international reputation will suffer as a result.”

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Women in the village of Rubkuai, South Sudan, February 16, 2017. 
© 2017 Siegfried Modola/Reuters

This week, South Sudan finalized ratification of the African Union’s Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo Protocol), ending years of delay. While this ratification signals a commitment to gender equality, South Sudanese authorities need to adopt effective policies and strategies to ensure the protocol makes a difference in people’s lives.

Implementing the Maputo Protocol need not be as fraught as its ratification process, which began when the government signed it in January 2013. Parliament ratified the agreement in October 2017 but had reservations on several provisions, including those discouraging polygamy and on sexual and reproductive health, particularly the right to decide whether to have children, the number and spacing, and the rights to contraceptives and safe abortion care. In March 2023, following years of advocacy by national and regional women’s rights groups, President Salva Kiir finally signed the instruments of ratification.

As Human Rights Watch has repeatedly urged, the government should begin fulfilling the terms of the protocol by setting the minimum age of marriage at 18. While South Sudan’s 2011 Transitional Constitution and the 2008 Child Act prohibit child marriage, they do not set an age limit and the practice has continued unabated.

The government should also finalize the proposed Anti Gender-Based Violence Bill, pending before the minister of justice since 2020. The bill outlaws harmful customary and traditional practices and proposes effective procedures for enforcement and monitoring. The authorities have disregarded the problem of sexual and gender-based violence in South Sudan, with police routinely treating domestic and intimate-partner violence as a private matter, with complaints rarely resulting in intervention or prosecution.

Marital rape is also not criminalized under statutory or customary laws. The government should enact a family law to regulate marriage, divorce, custody, and property inheritance outside the customary legal system.

Conflict-related sexual violence has been persistent since 2013, without meaningful accountability. The government should take credible steps to end impunity including by working with the African Union to finally establish a long-delayed Hybrid Court for South Sudan.

Civil society groups should play a prominent role in the Maputo Protocol’s implementation, including by seeking the withdrawal of reservations through advocacy, shadow reports or strategic litigation.

Such steps could go a long way in advancing education, economic empowerment, health, and freedom from violence for women and girls in South Sudan.