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On Tuesday, March 21, 2017, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held a hearing in Washington, D.C. on the human rights impacts of several recent Executive Orders issued by President Trump, including the order calling for expedited environmental reviews of infrastructure projects like the Dakota Access Pipeline. In a striking break with practice, the United States did not attend this...

March 25, 2017 | Brittney Bennett, USA Today When you hear about violence against women, the commonly used statistics are 1 in 2 have experienced physical violence in their lifetime while 1 in 6 have experienced rape or attempted rape, according to the Department of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For indigenous women, the numbers are even...

Agua Caliente Lote 9 is a small Q’eqchi’ Maya community located in the municipality of El Estor, department of Izabal, Guatemala. Set up in the Guatemalan highlands, Agua Caliente is an agricultural community, and most of its members are monolingual, only fluent in Q’eqchi Maya. Like many indigenous communities, the Agua Caliente has strong cultural and spiritual connections to its...

The creation of “protected areas” poses a second threat to the Maya Q’eqchi’s rights of self-determination and ownership of their lands and natural resources. These protected areas—some proposed and some already established—transfer the control and management of lands from the Q’eqchi’ to private institutions, most of which are non-governmental conservation organizations. We presented this information at a hearing before the...

Protecting the lives of the Maya Q’eqchi’ leaders and advocates is central to the work of the Indian Law Resource Center. Land-related conflicts have marked the relationship that the Q’eqchi’ communities have with governmental security forces and mining companies’ security personnel. These communities in El Estor have faced several attempts to forcibly evict them from their traditional lands, to make...

Raising the profile of the leaders the Center works with at the international level is one of the most effective ways of protecting their human rights and ensuring their security. For this reason, the Center has taken many actions to bring international attention to the Agua Caliente Lote 9's case and to protect the lives of the dedicated leaders and...

Worldwide, indigenous peoples are facing serious violations of their human and environmental rights due to the imposition of extractive industry projects on their land. The Center is advising the Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ Agua Caliente Lote 9 community as it seeks protection of its communal rights over land and natural resources before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In 2006, the...

Defensoria Q’eqchi’ Asociación Estoreña Para el Desarrollo Integral (AEPDI) is a Guatemalan non-profit organization working to promote the social development of the Maya Q'eqchi', Garifuna, and non-indigenous communities in El Estor, Guatemala. The organization’s Defensoria Q'eqchi' program provides legal and strategic assistance to Maya Q'eqchi' communities fighting for their environmental and human rights, as well as their cultural rights to...