“Racist migration and asylum policies only exacerbate the harm already inflicted on people forced to endure and flee the humanitarian and human rights crises in Haiti. States across the Americas must fulfill their international human rights obligations without discrimination, assess the protection needs of Haitians seeking refuge in fair and effective asylum procedures and refrain from returning them to Haiti,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

“Instead of further endangering them, states must protect and uphold the dignity and rights of Haitian migrants and asylum seekers. Regional solidarity and the reformation of migration policies with an anti-racist perspective are essential to addressing the grave dangers and injustices they face.”

The Americas region is experiencing one of the world’s most severe crises of people in need of international protection. According to the UNHCR’s recent report, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2022, six  of the top ten source countries of asylum applications globally in 2022 were in Latin America and the Caribbean. Asylum seekers from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia, Honduras, and Haiti have substantially increased from 2021. This transnational crisis is the result of multiple human rights and humanitarian crises across the region. In Haiti, the deteriorating human rights situation has forced thousands of people to flee to save their lives and those of their loved ones. Yet instead of receiving solidarity from other countries in the Americas, Haitians have suffered acts of racism, xenophobia, and systematic violence in their search for protection.

Racist migration and asylum policies only exacerbate the harm already inflicted on people forced to endure and flee the humanitarian and human rights crises in Haiti.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

Amnesty International has documented and received information on cases of assaults, arbitrary detentions, torture and other ill-treatment, mass deportations, and discriminatory practices that undermine Haitian asylum seekers’ human rights and their access to international protection in Peru, Chile, the Dominican Republic, the United States, Mexico, and other countries in the Caribbean and Central and South America.

Haitians transiting through the Americas have also suffered a constant lack of access to basic services and legal protection. These precarious conditions have been exacerbated by the systemic racism and negative stereotypes they face, hindering their integration and perpetuating their marginalization. Haitian women, girls and LGBTI people face even greater levels of discrimination, because in addition to all the dangers and ill-treatment they suffer as Black migrants and asylum-seekers, they are also exposed to the threat of gender-based violence.

Amnesty International has documented the many human rights concerns inherent in the US government’s recent decision to make the use of the mobile application mandatory in order to request asylum at the nation’s southern border. This requirement places Haitian individuals at a greater disadvantage, as they may face a higher risk of experiencing racial discrimination and violence in northern Mexico, where they are systematically excluded from shelters, forcing them to live in camps with cruel conditions and exposing them to greater danger. They have also experienced difficulties using the CBP One app’s facial recognition technology that struggles with recognizing Black faces and raises serious privacy, discrimination, and surveillance concerns.

Amnesty International has also condemned the US and Canadian governments’ agreement to expand, rather than rescind, the Safe Third Country Agreement in response to border crossings at Roxham Road. The organization is disappointed that Canada’s Supreme Court has failed to decisively rule that the agreement violates refugees’ rights, exposing refugees – including those from Haiti – to further harm while awaiting a further legal challenge against the agreement.

Governments in the region must end mass expulsions and deportations as well as other racially discriminatory practices against people in need of international protection, including Haitians. Instead, they must provide them with access to protection without discrimination, including fair and individualized assessments for refugee status, and other pathways to regularize their status, in accordance with both the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees and the Cartagena Declaration.

The post Americas: States must end racist treatment of Haitian asylum seekers appeared first on Amnesty International.

“The region cannot continue down the path of repressing protests, militarizing borders and public security, environmental destruction and failing to protect historically marginalized communities, such as Indigenous peoples and human rights defenders,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International. “The heads of state in the Americas must change course and seek solutions to create a freer and safer continent, with full respect for the human rights of all.”

Amnesty International’s concerns include the excessive use of force to suppress social protests, seen in several countries in the region and most recently in Peru. States in the Americas must ensure that individuals can exercise their right to peaceful protest and that any use of force by the security forces when policing demonstrations is necessary, legitimate and strictly proportionate. The organization also calls on states to end arbitrary detentions, unlawful killings, torture and other ill-treatment, which are frequently committed in much of the region.

Another issue that must be urgently addressed by states in the region is that of human mobility and the need for international protection, specifically in the case of people fleeing human rights crises in countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. It is alarming how restrictive and even inhumane migration policies, such as those of the USA, Mexico, Peru and Chile, have endangered people in need of international protection, rather than seeking cooperation to address the humanitarian crisis at various borders across the continent.

The region cannot continue down the path of repressing protests, militarizing borders and public security, environmental destruction and failing to protect historically marginalized communities, such as Indigenous peoples and human rights defenders 

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

Amnesty International also believes that states must find alternatives to address public security crises other than militarization, which has become the norm in several countries in the region. The use of the armed forces for public security tasks has been intensified in countries such as Mexico and Ecuador, which has created contexts that facilitate grave human rights violations without addressing the root causes of criminal violence.

States must take urgent action to protect human rights defenders; the Americas remains the most dangerous region for human rights defenders. According to Front Line Defenders, Colombia was the world’s deadliest country for defenders in 2022, with at least 186 killings, followed by Mexico (45), Brazil (26) and Honduras (17).

The climate crisis is another danger that threatens the region. Although the impacts of climate change on rural and historically marginalized communities are becoming increasingly clear, states’ efforts have been insufficient and have failed to address dependence on fossil fuels, the main factor behind the crisis.

Similarly, states have not done enough to guarantee the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Over the past year, Amnesty International has documented cases of killings of Indigenous leaders in countries including Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico in the context of land-related conflicts. Meanwhile, several states have proceeded with or granted concessions to national and multinational companies to implement extractive, agricultural and infrastructure projects without the free, prior and informed consent of the affected Indigenous peoples.

Violence and discrimination against women, girls and LGBTI people is another historical problem that urgently needs a concerted response. States in the region continue to fail to adequately address the very high levels of gender-based violence, including feminicides, and several states have taken measures that endanger people’s sexual and reproductive rights.

Finally, the General Assembly is due to elect four people to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Faced with the withdrawal of nominations from four countries, Amnesty International urges states in the Americas to elect people with the highest credentials, in line with the principles of suitability, impartiality, independence and recognized competence in the field of human rights, and to ensure that nominations and the withdrawal of nominations is firmly based on the inter-American legal framework.

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• The Americas remains the region with most fatalities from Covid, with more than 2.9 million confirmed deaths.

• The United States had more than 102 million confirmed cases and 1,111,000 deaths from Covid as of 14 March 2023, more than any other country on earth. Brazil had the world’s second highest death toll, with more than 699,000 fatalities.

• Peru still has the highest fatality rate in the world from Covid, with 6,481 confirmed deaths per million inhabitants.

• Authorities in El Salvador have detained more than 65,000 people since declaring a state of emergency in March 2022. With nearly 2% of the adult population behind bars, El Salvador has the world’s highest incarceration rate.

• As of last December, Nicaraguan authorities had revoked the legal status of at least 3,144 organizations and closed at least 12 universities. In February 2023 the government forcibly exiled 222 people, and stripped more than 300 of their nationality, including prominent human rights defenders, writers and journalists.

• At least 67 people have died since widespread protests began across Peru in December, including at least 49 deaths from state repression.

• Mexico suffered its deadliest ever year for journalists, with CPJ recording at least 13 killings. Only Ukraine recorded more killings of journalists (15) in 2022, while Haiti was the next deadliest country with seven killings.

• Turks and Caicos Islands recorded the highest murder rate in Latin America and the Caribbean last year (77.6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants), followed by Jamaica (52.9), St. Lucia (42.3) and Venezuela (40.4).

• The Americas accounted for 273 of 327 trans and gender-diverse people reported murdered worldwide between 1 October 2021 and 30 September 2022. Brazil recorded more killings (96) than any other country on earth, followed by Mexico (56), the United States (51) and Colombia (28).

• Mexico recorded 3,754 killings of women in 2022, of which 947 were investigated as feminicides.

• The number of people officially missing in Mexico surpassed 100,000 last year. As of 13 March 2023, the total stood at over 112,000.

• The US Supreme Court overturned a long-standing constitutional guarantee of abortion access last June, threatening critical rights, including the right to life, security and non-discrimination for millions of women, girls, and others. By the end of 2022, several US states had passed laws to ban or curtail access to abortion.

• US federal courts upheld the Migrant Protection Protocols and Title 42 of the US Code in 2022, resulting in irreparable harm to tens of thousands of asylum seekers who were expelled to danger in Mexico.

• Between September 2021 and May 2022, the USA expelled more than 25,000 Haitians without due process, in violation of national and international law.

• Mexican authorities detained at least 281,149 people in overcrowded immigration detention centers last year, and deported at least 98,299 people, mostly from Central America, including thousands of unaccompanied children.

• More than 7.17 million Venezuelans have left the country, mostly since 2015. Of these, over 6 million are living in other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

•     The number of migrant children crossing the dangerous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama on foot hit an all-time high, with UNICEF counting 32,488 children from January to October.

• Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon totalled more than 11,500 km² in the first 11 months of 2022, the second highest figure since 2006.

The post Facts and figures: Human rights in the Americas in 2022-23 appeared first on Amnesty International.

“The development of autonomy in weapons is accelerating, and the growing application of new Artificial Intelligence and machine learning technologies is a deeply worrying development. These machines risk automating killing, treating it as a technical undertaking which raises human rights risks as well as humanitarian, legal and ethical concerns. Autonomous machines will make life and death decisions without empathy or compassion.

The development of autonomy in weapons is accelerating, and the growing application of new Artificial Intelligence and machine learning technologies is a deeply worrying development.

Agnès Callamard, Secretary General, Amnesty International

“Autonomous weapon systems lack the ability to analyse the intentions behind people’s actions. They cannot make complex decisions about distinction and proportionality, determine the necessity of an attack, refuse an illegal order, or potentially recognize an attempt to surrender, which are vital for compliance with international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

“These new weapons technologies are at risk of further endangering civilians and civilian infrastructure in conflict. Amnesty International remains concerned about the potential human rights risks that increasing autonomy in policing and security equipment poses too, such as systems which use data and algorithms to predict crime.

“It has never been more urgent to draw legal red lines around the production and use of autonomous weapons systems to ensure we maintain meaningful human control over the use of force.

“Amnesty International supports the call made by governments from Latin American and Caribbean countries today for binding international legal controls on these weapons and welcomes the decision to work in alternative forums, beyond the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) where talks have stalled, to advance this new law.”

Background

The Regional Conference on the Social and Humanitarian Impact of Autonomous Weapons in San José, Costa Rica is the first of its kind and involved regional and observer governments, representatives of the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and civil society. Amnesty International is a founding member of Stop Killer Robots, a global coalition of more than 160 organizations working to address autonomy in weapons systems.

The post More than 30 countries call for international legal controls on killer robots appeared first on Amnesty International.

“Haitians fleeing their country amidst a humanitarian and human rights crisis should be welcomed and have the right to seek safety in the USA without discrimination. They must not be held in a third country or a US navy base infamous for unlawful and indefinite arbitrary detention and torture.”

“Amnesty International has demonstrated that successive US governments have tried to deter Haitian people from claiming asylum in the United States through the application of policies designed to intercept, detain, and remove them, starting in the 1970s and continuing with Title 42. Their tactics have included unlawful pushbacks at sea, mass detention, torture or other ill-treatment, and expedited removal proceedings with deficiencies in individualized screenings. In the 1990s, for instance, US authorities shamefully detained Haitian asylum seekers in poor conditions in camps in Guantánamo Bay.”

Haitians fleeing their country amidst a humanitarian and human rights crisis should be welcomed and have the right to seek safety in the USA without discrimination

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

“It is time for the United States to put a stop once and for all to this discriminatory treatment and make sure that Haitian asylum seekers have access to US territory and due process without discrimination to exercise their rights to seek asylum, including individualized assessments of their international protection claims. The ongoing operations at the Guantánamo Bay naval base are already marred with horrendous human rights violations, and Amnesty International has long called for the detention facility to be shuttered for good. The United States must refrain from using this site to commit more abuses.”

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“Within days of the Interagency Coordination for Refugees and Migrants R4V revealing that there are 7.1 million Venezuelans seeking international protection, the Biden administration shamefully announced a new plan to block access to asylum for Venezuelans seeking safety at the US border. While we acknowledge the important step taken by the Biden administration in the creation of a new parole program for 24,000 Venezuelans, we are greatly alarmed at the expansion of the application of Title 42. This new policy aimed at stopping Venezuelans from seeking safety at the border is again demonstrating that Title 42 has no basis in public health and runs contrary to US and international obligations to uphold the rights of all to seek safety. All people have a right to seek safety, regardless of familial or financial ties, and any parole program should not supplant the right to seek asylum.

“We are also concerned with media reports that the Title 42 expansion is due to also include nationals of Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua. Last month, Amnesty International released a groundbreaking report finding that Haitians expelled under Title 42 were subject to arbitrary detention and discriminatory and humiliating ill-treatment that amounts to race-based torture. We urge the Biden administration to reconsider this and to instead work diligently to put an end to Title 42, not to expand it. Eradicating this deadly policy is a critical first step towards restoring asylum and preserving the human rights of asylum seekers; anything else is a band-aid that is not solving the issues at hand.” 

The post USA: Biden administration must reverse decision to expand Title 42 appeared first on Amnesty International.

These human rights violations, along with mass expulsions under Title 42, are the latest chapter in a long history of detention, exclusion, and the practice of trying to deter Haitians seeking safety in the United States, rooted in systemic anti-Black discrimination.

“One year ago, the Biden administration condemned the shameful scenes of mounted Border Patrol agents violently dispersing Haitian asylum seekers in Del Rio, Texas. Despite this, US authorities have continued to restrict their right to seek international protection at the US-Mexico border,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

“They have also continued to evoke the evils of slavery by shackling and handcuffing Black Haitians onboard expulsion flights, inflicting further pain and mental suffering upon them that amounts to torture under international human rights law. Our research provides ample evidence that systemic racism is embedded within the US immigration system, as described by Haitian asylum seekers interviewed for this report.”

The report shows that successive US administrations have tried to deter Haitian people from claiming asylum in the United States through the application of various policies designed to intercept, detain, and remove them, starting in the 1970s and continuing with Title 42. 

One year ago, the Biden administration condemned the shameful scenes of mounted Border Patrol agents violently dispersing Haitian asylum seekers in Del Rio, Texas. Despite this, US authorities have continued to restrict their right to seek international protection at the US-Mexico border.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

Nicole Phillips, legal director at Haitian Bridge Alliance, an organization that has been at the forefront of highlighting the mistreatment of Haitians by US authorities said: “Last September the world watched in horror as photos went viral of a mounted Border Patrol officer using his reins to whip at Mirard Joseph, one of about 15,000 Haitian people seeking protection in Del Rio, Texas. As appalling as the incident was, it was the tip of the iceberg of decades of mistreatment to deter Haitians from seeking safety in the United States. We hope the recommendations in this report will spark a dialogue among US authorities to dismantle the race-based discrimination and torture that Haitians and other Black migrants often face in the US immigration system.”

All 24 people that Amnesty International interviewed in Haiti for this report appear to have been expelled under Title 42 between September 2021 and January 2022. None of them had the opportunity to go through an individual assessment by asylum officers (fear-based screenings) before being sent back to Haiti. According to the testimonies gathered, US officials even detained babies as young as nine and 14 days old, and in several cases separated them from their parents. These are violations under international law. Haitians interviewed also stated they did not have access to interpreters, legal representation, or information about the place of their detention or the reasons they were being held, which constitutes arbitrary detention.

Additionally, none of the Haitians that Amnesty International interviewed reported that they were tested for Covid-19 or offered vaccines at any point during their detention or prior to expulsion. Many also noted they were not provided masks or able to physically distance themselves from others, which undermines claims that Title 42 expulsions are designed to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

The ill-treatment Haitians experienced in US detention facilities – which included a lack of access to sufficient food, healthcare, information, interpreters, and lawyers – had a cumulative impact on those interviewed for this report, as they had already suffered a range of human rights violations, including anti-Black racism, throughout their journey to the United States.

Finally, all 24 Haitians interviewed by Amnesty International said they were returned to Haiti by plane in handcuffs and shackles – treatment that caused them severe psychological pain and suffering due to its association with slavery and criminality. In the assessment of Amnesty International, based on the testimonies gathered, this amounts to torture based on their race and migration status under international human rights law, which absolutely prohibits torture and other ill-treatment, and requires states to protect people from all acts of torture, including those based on specific vulnerabilities such as race, migratory status, and nationality. 

A history of anti-Black racial discrimination

The history of enslavement of people of African descent and contemporary forms of systemic anti-Black racism are a critical backdrop to this research. As evidence highlighted in the report suggests, practices of ill-treatment towards Haitians are widespread and have occurred historically at different times and in different places, pointing to long-term and systemic racial discrimination within the immigration system with the aim of punishing Haitian people and deterring them from seeking asylum in the United States.

We hope the recommendations in this report will spark a dialogue among US authorities to dismantle the race-based discrimination and torture that Haitians and other Black migrants often face in the US immigration system.

Nicole Phillips, legal director at Haitian Bridge Alliance

Amnesty international calls on all states to address and dismantle systemic racial discrimination and acknowledge how racism is rooted in structures and practices that emerged during colonialism and slavery. US authorities must take steps to reform all institutions, legislation, policies, and practices that reinforce harmful racial and nationality-based stereotypes. Title 42 is a clear example of such a policy. Not only does it unlawfully bypass laws that protect people from being deported to harm, but it also reinforces harmful and racist stereotypes that lead to human rights violations.

While Amnesty International has reviewed and summarized strong evidence that anti-Black racism is embedded within the US immigration system, US authorities do not appear to proactively collect data on racial bias or discrimination, as required by international human rights standards.

Reiterating the calls made by more than 100 members of Congress to the Biden administration in February 2022, Amnesty International calls on the US government to commit to reversing anti-Black policies and to conduct a full review of the disparate treatment of Black people seeking protection in the US immigration system.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Amnesty International press office (Amnesty International Americas): press@amnesty.org

Gabby Arias (Amnesty International USA): media@aiusa.org 

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Amnesty International, Haitian Bridge Alliance, UndocuBlack Network, and Communities United for Status and Protection will lead the action on Capitol Hill, which coincides with the release of the report ‘They Did Not Treat Us Like People’: Race and Migration-Related Torture and Other Ill-Treatment of Haitians Seeking Safety in the USA.

What: Press conference to denounce torture of Haitian asylum seekers

Speakers at the event will include:

• Moderator: Amy Fischer, Advocacy Director, Amnesty InterChange
• Rep. Andy Levin, Founder and Co-Chair, House Haiti Caucus
• Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Regional Director, Amnesty International
• Daniel Tse, Haitian Bridge Alliance
• Krystina Francois, Communities United for Status & Protection (CUSP)
• Haddy Gassama, UndocuBlack Network

Rep. Andy Levin, Erika Guevara-Rosas and Krystina Francois as well as Taisha Saintil, advocacy and communications coordinator at Haitian Bridge Alliance, are available for interviews.

When: September 22 at 11:30 am

Where: United States Capitol Triangle, Washington, DC 20004

Please RSVP to: media@aiusa.org

To arrange an interview, please contact:

Amnesty International: media@aiusa.org

Rep. Andy Levin: Janae.Washington@mail.house.gov

Taisha Saintil (Haitian Bridge Alliance): tsaintil@haitianbridge.org

Carolyn Tran (CUSP): carolyn@wearecusp.org

Bethelhem Negash (UndocuBlack Network): bethelhem@undocublack.org

The post Amnesty International, Haitian Bridge Alliance, UndocuBlack Network, and CUSP to lead press conference outside Congress to denounce torture of Haitian asylum seekers; Rep. Andy Levin to speak appeared first on Amnesty International.

Since the implementation of Title 42 in March 2020 – a measure initially created by the Trump administration under the pretext of COVID-19 that authorizes expulsions without screenings or asylum protection – tens of thousands of asylum seekers have been expelled to the countries from which they fled. In conjunction with the Remain in Mexico policy – a policy under which the US government forcibly returned people to Mexico while awaiting an asylum claim in the US – asylum seekers have been left stranded in camps along the US/Mexico border where they are in extraordinary danger, and potentially further pushed into harm’s way. 

“Title 42 expulsions have always been a xenophobic policy thinly disguised as a public health measure. The decision to halt its termination is a devastating blow to human rights in the Americas and will put countless lives at risk, in violation of US law and international law. It sends a message to governments across the Americas that the United States has total disregard for the human right to seek asylum, setting a shamefully bad example in the protection of the rights of people in search of safety. While the Biden Administration continues the fight to end Title 42 in the courts once and for all, the US Congress must block any proposed legislation that would either delay termination or make Title 42 expulsions permanent,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International. 

States in the Americas should engage in international cooperation to effectively and concretely respect human rights in the asylum process of each state, and to remove determinants that have pushed people into displacement.

Amnesty International has published extensive research about the impact of Title 42 on different groups of people in need of international protection: 

Impact of Title 42 on Haitian Migrants

In December 2021, in conjunction with the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Haitian Bridge Alliance, the Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law, the Groupe d’Appui aux Rapatriés et Réfugiés (GARR), Refugees International, Rezo Fwotalye Jano Siksè and Service Jésuite aux Migrants Haiti, Amnesty International published information about the risks Haitians face when expelled under Title 42. 

Title 42 expulsions have always been a xenophobic policy thinly disguised as a public health measure. The decision to halt its termination is a devastating blow to human rights in the Americas and will put countless lives at risk, in violation of US law and international law

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

Amnesty’s research found that under the guise of public health, the US made regular misuse of Title 42 order to conduct mass expulsions and block Haitians and others from seeking asylum. This practice, widely criticized by the United Nations, health experts, human rights organizations and even US officials, put people at increased risk of contracting COVID-19 and appears to have facilited racism, xenophobia, and discrimination in US border policies. The use of excessive force against Haitian migrants and asylum seekers by border agents on horseback in Del Rio, Texas in September 2021 reflected experiences of systemic racism and anti-Blackness inherent in the policing system throughout the country. 

Meanwhile, Amnesty International research gathered in October 2021 similarly found that other states across the Americas, including Mexico, Chile and Brazil, are failing to shield Haitians on the move from a range of human rights violations, including detention and unlawful pushbacks, extortion, anti-black racism, abuses including gender-based violence by armed groups, and destitution. These combined failures by states leave tens of thousands of Haitians without international protection and often unable to rebuild their lives anywhere in safety.

Since the beginning of 2021 and continuing even today, the US has been responsible for the vast majority of expulsions of Haitians to potentially grave danger, with smaller numbers deported from Mexico and other Caribbean islands.

Impact on Unaccompanied Children 

In June 2021, Amnesty International published information about the forcible returns of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children into harm’s way as a result of policies like Title 42. From March to November 2020, the Department of Homeland Security apprehended and summarily expelled at least 13,000 unaccompanied migrant children based on Title 42. In mid-November 2020, a federal court temporarily ordered the US government to stop deporting children under Title 42; and in late January 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order to continue to exempt unaccompanied children from Title 42. 

These exemptions have led to mass separations of families, as parents make the impossible choice of sending their children to the US as unaccompanied children while parents stay behind in Mexico, where they face serious danger.  

The post USA: Upholding dangerous immigration policy will harm people throughout the Americas appeared first on Amnesty International.

• The United States had more than 78 million confirmed cases and 954,000 deaths from Covid-19 as of 10 March 2022, more than any other country on earth. Brazil had the second highest death toll on earth, with more than 652,000 fatalities. (WHO)

• Peru had registered 6,497 confirmed deaths per million inhabitants from Covid-19 as of 10 March 2022, the highest rate in the world. (Statista)

• 65% of the population in the Americas had been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as of 10 March 2022, more than any other region except for the Western Pacific. (WHO)

• According to official data, Cuba had fully or partially vaccinated 94% of its population, with vaccines it developed itself, as of 10 March 2022, more than any other country in the Americas. Haiti had fully or partially vaccinated just 1.3% of its population, the lowest figure in the region. (Our World in Data)

• 46% of countries in the Americas reported disruptions to the delivery of health services due to the pandemic in 2021. (PAHO)

• The estimated number of people living in poverty in Latin America last year was 14 million higher than before the pandemic. This is equivalent to more than the entire population of Bolivia. The number of people in extreme poverty was also up 16 million from 2019.(ECLAC)

• Jamaica remained the most violent country in Latin America and the Caribbean last year (with a homicide rate of 49.4 per 100,000 inhabitants), followed by Venezuela (40.9) and Honduras (38.6). (Insight Crime)

• With 252 killings, Latin America and the Caribbean was the world’s deadliest region for human rights defenders last year and accounted for 68% of the global total of 358 killings. Colombia remained the world’s most lethal country for human rights defenders, with 138 killings, followed by Mexico and Brazil. (Front Line Defenders)

• Mexico remains the world’s deadliest country for journalists with nine killings in 2021, according to CPJ. At least eight more journalists have been murdered in Mexico in the first three months of 2022. (AP)

• Cuba imprisoned three journalists in 2021, more than any other country in the Americas, followed by Nicaragua (two) and Brazil (one). (CPJ)

• Mexico recorded 3,716 killings of women in 2021, of which 969 were investigated as femicides. (SESNSP)

• There are officially more than 97,000 missing or disappeared people across Mexico. (CNB)

• The Americas accounted for 316 of 375 trans and gender-diverse people reported murdered worldwide between 1 October 2020 and 30 September 2021. Brazil recorded more killings (125) than any other country on earth, followed by Mexico (65), the United States (53) and Colombia (25). (TVT)

• Escazú Agreement, a regional treaty on access to information, public participation and justice in environmental matters and the protection of environmental defenders, came into effect on 22 April 2021.

• Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon totalled more than 13,000 km² in 2021, the highest figure since 2006. (INPE).

• Transparency International ranked Canada as the least corrupt country in the Americas (13^th worldwide) in its 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index, followed by Uruguay (18^th), the United States and Chile (joint 27^th). Venezuela (177^th) was ranked the most corrupt in the region, followed by Haiti and Nicaragua (joint 164^th).

• More than 6 million Venezuelans have left the country, mostly since 2015, in what is the world’s second largest refugee crisis after Syria. (R4V)

• At least 650 people died attempting to cross Mexico’s border with the United States in 2021, more than in any other year since IOM began documenting deaths in 2014. 

• US Border control officials carried out unnecessary and unlawful pushbacks of nearly 1.5 million refugees and migrants at the USA-Mexico border in 2021, including tens of thousands of unaccompanied children, using Covid-19 public health provisions as a pretext. (Amnesty International)

• Mexican authorities detained at least 252,526 people in overcrowded immigration detention centres that did not comply with basic sanitary measures last year, and deported at least 101,571 people, mostly from Central America, including thousands of unaccompanied children. (Amnesty International)

The post Facts and figures: Human rights in the Americas in 2021-22 appeared first on Amnesty International.

Amnesty International Report 2021/22: The State of the World’s Human Rights details how, two years into the pandemic, the Americas is still the region with the most deaths from Covid-19, largely due to limited and unequal access to healthcare, poorly funded public health systems, and inadequate social protection policies and measures for marginalized communities. Impunity for grave human rights violations and crimes under international law remains a serious concern in more than half the countries in the region, while attacks on judicial independence have also increased.

“It’s shameful and unconscionable that instead of addressing the injustices and deep-seated inequalities that have plagued the Americas for generations and exacerbated the impact of the pandemic, many governments have instead sought to silence and repress those who protest peacefully and speak out in demand of a safer, fairer and more compassionate world,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

The Americas has achieved the world’s second-highest vaccination rates per capita, with Cuba and Chile leading the way in vaccinating over 90 percent of their populations, but unequal regional access has undermined protection in countries like Haiti, where less than two percent of the population had been vaccinated as of 10 March 2022. Meanwhile, wealthy nations such as the USA and Canada stockpiled more doses than needed and turned a blind eye as Big Pharma put profits ahead of people, refusing to share their technology to enable wider distribution of vaccines.

“Many states in the Americas have made encouraging progress in vaccinating their populations, but they must do much more to ensure equal and universal access to vaccines in every country and address the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic, which has disproportionately affected those who already face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and marginalization, such as women and Indigenous and Afro-descendent people,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

Even before the pandemic, the Americas had the world’s highest rates of income inequality. The continent’s uneven economic recovery last year made little impact on the consequences of decades of structural inequality and proved insufficient to reverse the 2020 economic downturn, which brought record unemployment, falling incomes and increases in poverty. This has worsened preexisting humanitarian emergencies in countries like Haiti and Venezuela, where millions of people continue to lack access to sufficient food and health care.

It’s shameful and unconscionable that instead of addressing the injustices and deep-seated inequalities that have plagued the Americas for generations and exacerbated the impact of the pandemic, many governments have instead sought to silence and repress those who protest peacefully and speak out in demand of a safer, fairer and more compassionate world

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

Meanwhile, efforts to stifle independent and critical voices gathered steam in 2021 as states deployed a widening gamut of tools and tactics, including threats, harassment, politically motivated arbitrary arrests, unfounded prosecutions, unlawful surveillance, excessive use of force, enforced disappearance and unlawful killings, to crack down on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.

At least 36 states in the USA introduced more than 80 pieces of draft legislation limiting the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, while in Colombia authorities brutally repressed protesters during last year’s National Strike, resulting in 46 deaths, 3,275 arbitrary detentions, over 100 ocular injuries, and 49 reports of sexual violence.

Cuban authorities also arbitrarily detained hundreds of people during historic protests last July and banned another march to call for their release in October, as well as resorting to internet shutdowns to prevent people from sharing information about repression and organizing in response. Surreptitious digital technologies were further weaponized in El Salvador, where NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware was deployed against journalists and activists on a massive scale.

Dozens of journalists and media workers were threatened, censored, attacked and detained across the region, with Mexico remaining the world’s most lethal country for journalists after recording nine killings in 2021 and at least eight more in early 2022.

Excessive and unnecessary use of force in law enforcement operations also proved deadly in many countries, including Brazil, where the deadliest ever operation by police in Rio de Janeiro left 27 residents of the Jacarezinho favela dead last May. In the USA, police shot dead at least 888 people in 2021, with Black people disproportionately impacted.

Racism and discrimination remained prevalent across the Americas, with inadequate access to water, sanitation, health services and social benefits exacerbating the impact of the pandemic on Indigenous peoples in particular. Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela all continued to allow major extractive, agricultural and infrastructure projects to proceed without obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of affected Indigenous peoples, and sometimes despite judicial orders to suspend operations.

Despite some progress, action on climate change remained limited. The Escazú Agreement, a regional treaty for environmental justice and the protection of environmental defenders in Latin America and the Caribbean, finally came into force last April, although Cuba, Honduras and Venezuela have yet to sign it and 12 other countries have still not ratified it. The USA rejoined the Paris Agreement under President Biden and sought to reverse hundreds of laws and policies that the Trump administration passed to deregulate the environmental and energy sectors, but it continued to approve oil drilling projects on federal land.

Brazil’s President Bolsonaro continued to encourage deforestation and extraction of natural resources in the Amazon, exacerbating the impact of the climate crisis on Indigenous peoples’ lands and territories, and drawing accusations of genocide and ecocide before the International Criminal Court. Elsewhere, Canada continued to subsidize the fossil fuel industry, Bolivia passed regulations that incentivized logging and the burning of forests, and Mexico, the world’s 11^th largest greenhouse gas emitter, failed to present new emission reduction targets at COP26.

Tens of thousands of people – mostly from Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Venezuela – fled human rights violations related to violence, poverty, inequality and climate change throughout the year. Yet the governments of Canada, Chile, Curaçao, Mexico, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and the USA continued to prohibit the entry of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, and violated international law by deporting, without proper consideration of their claims, those who did make it across borders.

Tens of thousands of Haitian refugees sought international protection, but governments across the region failed to shield them from detention and unlawful pushbacks, extortion, racial discrimination and gender-based violence. US border control officials pushed back over a million refugees and migrants at the US-Mexico border, including tens of thousands of unaccompanied children, using Covid-19 public health provisions as a pretext.

Gender-based violence remains a major concern across the region, with measures to protect women and girls inadequate throughout the region, and investigations into domestic violence, rape and femicide often flawed. Mexico recorded 3,716 killings of women in 2021, of which 969 were investigated as femicides, while Mexican security forces used excessive force, arbitrary detentions and sexual violence against women protesters. Both Paraguay and Puerto Rico declared states of emergency because of increased violence against women and there were also significant increases in violence against women in Peru and Uruguay.

The Americas saw some limited progress in the recognition of the rights of LGBTI people last year with Argentina introducing identity cards recognizing people who identify as non-binary and passing a law to promote the employment of trans people. President Biden’s government took steps to repeal the previous administration’s discriminatory policies toward LGBTI people in the USA, but hundreds of state-level bills were also introduced that would curtail their rights.

From Argentina to Colombia, the green tide has built up unstoppable momentum and shown that change is possible even in seemingly hopeless situations. The feminist activists of the Americas are an inspiration for all the world to never stop standing up for human rights 

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

Legislation that would better protect the rights of LGBTI people was blocked in many parts of the region, while individuals in several countries continued to be the targets of discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. The Americas accounted for 316 of 375 trans and gender-diverse people reported murdered worldwide from October 2020 to September 2021, with Brazil recording 125 killings – more than any other country on earth.

Many governments did not do enough to prioritize sexual and reproductive health in 2021. Essential services were lacking, and safe abortion services remained criminalized in most countries, with the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica and Nicaragua maintaining total bans on abortion. State governments in the USA introduced more abortion restrictions than in any other year, with Texas enacting a near-total ban that criminalizes abortion just six weeks into pregnancy.

Undeterred, Latin America’s vibrant feminist movement has continued to gain momentum since Argentina legalized abortion in late 2020, with Mexico’s Supreme Court declaring the criminalization of abortion unconstitutional in September 2021 and in Colombia’s Constituional Court decriminalizing abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy in February 2022.

“From Argentina to Colombia, the green tide has built up unstoppable momentum and shown that change is possible even in seemingly hopeless situations. The feminist activists of the Americas are an inspiration for all the world to never stop standing up for human rights,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas. 

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Amnesty International press office: press@amnesty.org

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Two deadly earthquakes a decade apart. Political turmoil. The assassination of a President. Rampant insecurity. Kidnappings. Multiple massacres allegedly with state involvement. Food insecurity. Fuel shortages. A rise in gender-based violence.

The list goes on.

These are just some of the reasons why Haitians have, for years, made the decision that life was unsafe or untenable in their home countries and left in search of safety and stability for their families.

The state has, for years, failed to address the violence and instability throughout the country, and with natural disasters further destabilizing Haiti, many people have been left with few choices but to leave if they wished to survive. The international community’s efforts have also failed to address the most pressing human rights issues in the country.

Yet states within the Americas have also failed to protect them.

A few weeks ago, an Amnesty International and Haitian Bridge Alliance delegation travelled to Tapachula, Mexico, on the border with Guatemala, where we had the opportunity to interview more than 60 Haitians, all stuck in the city, which Mexican authorities have converted into a kind of “roofless prison,” while they await their asylum claims to be processed.

Haitians are not safe or secure anywhere. This was particularly clear after hearing dozens of people describe in detail how in multiple countries in the region, they had experienced human rights violations including detention and unlawful pushbacks, extortion, anti-Black racism, abuses including gender-based violence by armed groups, and destitution.

The majority of people we interviewed had left Haiti some years ago, and many went to live and work in Chile. However, they felt compelled to leave because of racism and the inability to regularize their immigration status under the Piñera administration. This left them with the uncertainty of knowing if their families were going to be safe. But although the people we spoke to could not stay in Chile, they told us they cannot return to Haiti.

All those we spoke with in Tapachula expressed fear of being deported to Haiti. One man told us he had fled Haiti months after unidentified men killed a relative who belonged to a political party. No one was ever prosecuted for the killing. A woman said she left after armed men went from house to house in her neighbourhood, burglarizing, beating and raping her family and her neighbours. She told us that reporting to the police was futile because they could not protect her, and she feared retaliation.

But that is just one part of the story.

While Mexico, the United States, and other countries in the region have the duty to ensure Haitians on the move are safe, as set out in a resolution recently published by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, they are not doing so.

According to the International Organisation of Migration, since mid-September, countries across the Americas have deported some 12,000 Haitians back to Haiti, the majority from the US.

In a public statement which Amnesty International, and seven other organizations, published today, we set out how the US continues to violate the rights of Haitian migrants and asylum seekers by expelling them under a Title 42 policy –an order under the guise of public health whose misuse to conduct mass expulsions has been widely condemned by the UN and health experts, among others — largely without providing access to the US asylum system or protection screenings mandated under the Convention against Torture.

But Mexican authorities are not doing much better. According to our research, Mexico’s immigration officials continue to pushback Haitians into Guatemala, often at night, without individualised assessments of people’s protection needs, and without giving them information about their right to claim asylum, in violation of international human rights standards.

As of November, more than 47,000 Haitians had claimed asylum in Mexico, but only 37% had received refugee status or complimentary protection, according to data from the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR). This is compared with a success rate of 97% for Venezuelans or 84% for Hondurans. One of the reasons for this is Mexico is failing to consider Haitians refugees as defined under the Cartagena Declaration, something Mexico is already doing for other nationalities who are fleeing “massive human rights violations” or “generalized violence”, as defined in the Convention, and which clearly applies to Haiti. It is also failing to provide other forms of legal residency to Haitians, something Mexican law allows for.

But the story continues.

To arrive in Mexico, Haitians must travel overland through six to nine Latin American countries, always passing through the gruelling Darien Gap, a stretch of jungle and mountains filled with multiple dangers, including criminal armed groups.

Some of the people we interviewed teared up as they told us they had witnessed armed groups raping women migrants they had travelled through the jungle with or described the risks of the journey for their families. Even for researchers accustomed to documenting human rights violations, these stories are hard to listen to.

So too are the stories of constant microagressions to overtly racist acts that Haitians told us they experienced in many of the countries they travelled through.

“Wherever we go, they (people) look at us like ‘children of poor people’”, one man told us. Another woman said that on the bus in Chile she sometimes felt white people would move to another seat to avoid sitting next to her. Others said they experienced racial discrimination at work and were paid less and required to do more.

Another man told us that en route to Mexico, police officials in four separate countries stopped the bus he was travelling on, requested passports and then extorted everyone onboard, forcing them to pay between $20 and 30 for them to continue. On one occasion in Honduras, he said, the police made all the white people get off the bus, and then extorted all the black people who they kept inside. He was unsure if they also extorted the lighter skinned migrants, but felt Haitians were racially profiled and discriminated against.

For all these reasons, for many Haitians, nowhere is safe.

But it doesn’t have to be like this.

States across the region have in place the legal frameworks to provide Haitians with international protection in this situation, through granting asylum, or alternative forms of legal residency with appropriate safeguards, as also recommended by the UN.

In any research, you always remember the emotions people transmit. During this research trip, we will remember the dignity and determination of the Haitians we interviewed, and their strong need for stability after enduring so much trauma. They have travelled far in search of the things all humans work to secure – access to shelter, food, schools, and other basic needs. Governments across the region seem to forget that these protections are also protections governments have the obligation to provide, but which they are shamefully failing to fulfil.

This article was originally published in El Diario

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