Two years ago, Guatemalans succeeded in pushing then-President Otto Perez Molina and Vice President Roxanna Baldetti out of office for corruption, thanks to the help of the U.N.-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG. Through its investigations, which brought thousands of protesters out into the streets, the commission found that Perez Molina’s administration had led a high-level graft ring, taking bribes from international businesses rather than collecting taxes for the state. Both leaders are currently in prison. It was an unprecedented moment of accountability for a country that suffers from high rates of impunity. But it was just [...]
Latin American countries have consistently ratified international conventions to protect women. They are falling behind in implementation, though, despite some of the worst rates of gender-based violence and femicide in the world. Why aren't these agreements being translated into policies? Protecting women against gender-based violence is too often overlooked as a global human rights issue. On the surface, Latin America may look like an exception. All of the region’s countries have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and 14 have ratified the convention’s optional protocol that permits a special U.N. committee [...]
Over two days in Miami earlier this month, the leaders of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador met with officials from the United States and Mexico to discuss the longstanding challenges of combating transnational crime, narcotrafficking and corruption in Central America. Any discussion of migration policy, however, was explicitly off the table at the Conference on Prosperity and Security, which included U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. Despite brutal conditions in the region that have driven a spike in migration north in recent years, the Trump administration’s narrow priorities in Central [...]
