Statement by AJWS Senior Director of Civil and Political Rights and Advocacy, Tracey Gurd, on the attempts to dismantle an independent judicial system in Guatemala As U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris plans her visit to Guatemala in June, we encourage her to focus on the attacks on the country’s democracy, especially those aimed at Guatemala’s …
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Hurricane Iota hurtles towards the same coastlines just battered by Tropical Storm Eta, as Central America braces for more catastrophic damage.
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Across the world, COVID-19 is ravaging low-income communities unprepared to take on a global pandemic and its economic effects. This crisis is compounded by authoritarian governments who are both refusing to lead with the public’s interest in mind and capitalizing on this global pandemic to assert and strengthen their power. To learn more about how …
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Human rights group calls on Morales government to end 30-day state of siege affecting indigenous communities American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the leading global Jewish human rights organization, strongly denounces Guatemala’s decision to impose a 30-day state of siege across 22 municipalities in five provinces in response to the killings of three Guatemalan military officers. …
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In the hot, rural plains of Altaverapaz, Guatemala, there is a small agrarian community, 81 families strong. They’ve only just arrived at La Flecha in the last year, trickling in to this neglected farm after being displaced from different lands in the region. Life in La Flecha isn’t easy. Small cinderblock houses with tin roofs …
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This award-winning NGO helps activists stay safe, so they can keep speaking out against injustice. In recent years, activists who defend human rights in Guatemala have faced a rising wave of targeted violence that aims to crush their growing movements for social change. From 2008 to 2011, there were 1,286 reports of attacks against human …
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In Guatemala, very few young people have access to quality reproductive health care and sexual health education. Only 44 percent of women of reproductive age use any kind of contraceptives. The maternal mortality rate—the proportion of pregnancies that end in the mother’s death—is the second worst in Latin America and is especially high among indigenous …
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