Indigenous Communities

The Viva Berta encampment in Tegucigalpa, set up by Garífuna communities defending their ancestral lands from drug traffickers and commercial developers, confronts organized-crime pressure and state criminalization of land activists.

Garífuna activists and their allies have maintained a two-month encampment outside Honduras's judicial headquarters in Tegucigalpa to demand state compliance with prior court rulings on land rights and the release of five detained defenders arrested in a violent eviction.

Garífuna communities on Honduras' Caribbean coast fighting to reclaim ancestral land face intimidation from drug traffickers and organized-crime charges from the state, two years after a 2024 government land-demarcation mission was abandoned under threats.

Judicial facilitators held an outreach session in Brus Laguna, Gracias a Dios, to publicize the Registry of Delinquent Child-Support Obligors (REDAM), with presentations in Miskitu to reach indigenous communities in the remote coastal department.

A study of 19 Garífuna and Lenca communities across four Honduran departments finds they have created their own child-protection mechanisms—including community committees, women's networks, and cultural spaces—to shield children from violence in the absence of effective government services.