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Sloth & Yarn Ball Enamel Keychain
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Show off your love for your craft! Sloth & Yarn Ball Enamel Keychain features a shiny gold-colored metal lobster clasp, a linked chain, and an enamel sloth with a yarn ball design below. The sloth is light brown with a white stomach, and it wears a red and yellow flower crown as it hangs from a lavender and light pink ball of yarn. Attach this fun design to your key ring!
- Length: 4 3/8"
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Written by Beth Ryan
It was always directed toward me. Her um anger and aggression. Always toward me. I wondered if that was a consequence of doing a Lovaas replication program. Because I’ve been in her face since before she was two years old. It was always touch your nose. Touch the apple. Do this. Do that. And you know, um, maybe this is sort of a natural consequence to that. I’m not really sure. But I’m sure at this point it is some sort of shaped behavior. Because sometimes even making eye contact with her will trigger a response. (Kelli Stapleton–full interview here)
There is no doubt that the tragedy involving Kelli Stapleton and the attempted murder of her child belongs in every single conversation around Autism “treatments”, bullying, and the way that some parents of Autistic children habitually devalue and dehumanize their children.
The fact that so many parents are still willing to make the claim that Kelli’s attempt to murder her own child is “an act of love” means that her name and the road she traveled to get to the place where she was able to harm her child needs to be brought up again and again.
We need to examine. To scrutinize the ill fated journey that she took to get to that place. It is uncomfortable. It is painful. And it is entirely necessary to talk about that heartbreaking topic.
The how and why are so very important.
The easiest answer is that there aren’t enough services. That there aren’t enough supports for Autistic people and their families. And while it is true that Autistic people are in desperate need of more direct services and supports, we cannot say that lack of services are to blame for Kelli’s attempt on her child’s life. Issy had just come home from an extended stay in a residential facility and Issy had around the clock care.
So we must look elsewhere for our answers. I believe that the answers are in the way, even as parents, we have come to see Autistic people. Not fully human. Not worthy of the rights and respect that most of us take for granted.
If you read Kelli’s blog, you will not think it unlike many blogs written by parents of Autistic children. For instance, you probably would not dream of posting a video of a typical teenager at his most vulnerable moment. But parents of Autistic children do so habitually. When either of my children are having a challenging moment, the furthest think from my mind is snapping a picture of myself comforting her. Or capturing a video of a meltdown. These are sacred moments where my child needs me. Where I am thinking, only, of making sure my child knows that I am present and loving her with my entire being.
Capturing media as fodder for one’s blog should be about the furthest thing from one’s mind. And I don’t believe that it is with this type of parent. The martyr mommy/daddy. Sure they can claim that they are trying to help other parents not feel so alone…or whatever the party line is. But even if that is true, if my belief that they are attention seeking is wrong, they are doing so at the expense of the privacy of their children. “Helping” other parents should not override the sacred trust of a parent/child relationship.
Parents prone towards these acts of betrayal of their children are not merely poor parents. Because the ones that I’ve seen and am speaking of are also prone towards despicable acts of emotional and verbal abuse towards Autistic adults that are brave enough to face their wrath.
This tells me that these parents have devalued, not only their children, but Autistic people in general. This should not be exactly surprising given the culture of hate and systemic dehumanization of Autistic people that we are entrenched in. Nonetheless, I continue to be shocked by the lengths that these parents are willing to go to viciously bully Autistic people. They wield their advantages of the power differential in shocking and despicable ways and maintain the nerve to cry out that they are the victims of discrimination.
Discrimination is a combination of power and prejudice. Autistic people lack power. They are a minority group and victims of all sorts of things like media bias, systemic oppression, marginalization, etc. Autistic people are capable of bigotry. But they are not capable of the type of discrimination that parents of screaming about. The continued insistence that parents are the victims is offensive and only serves to underscore the fact that these loud parents are ignorant about what it means to be part of a minority.
I wouldn’t worry so much about what these foolish parents say. Except that they are so damn loud and aggressive. I cannot stand the thought of their voices–the voices of murder apologists– dominating the conversation around my daughter’s neurology. The thought that they are perpetuating the Autism Speaks’ fear and tragedy stereotypes make it impossible for me to ignore them.
And so I stand with the brave Autistic adults, who are regularly targeted and viciously attacked by this insidious tribe. I stand with them because they are awesome and courageous and kind. Yes. Because they are my friends. Yes. But also because every single time they hang their necks out,knowing full well that they will be targeted and abused as a result, they are hanging them out for my daughter.
So I’m selfish. And I’m grateful with every fiber of my being. As such, it is my moral obligation–the moral obligation of every single parent of an Autistic child out there, to use our advantages to support the creation of a world where our children are seen as whole and valuable human beings. That starts with the recognition of the fact that the assault against the humanity of any Autistic person is as good as an assault against our very children.
I always appreciate your input – for a long time, I didn’t know any parents of autistic children that I’d trust to “get it.” It was always a pity narrative, always wrapped in terror and woe and invalidating me and my experience as an autistic adult. I can (usually) hold a coherent conversation, I can drive, I can hold down a job, though self-employment is looking more and more likely for me now. I am living proof that autism is not a life killer, and you were one of the first parents whose writings made me think you would possibly understand that.
I am actually a licensed attorney, and originally from Michigan. I am seriously considering writing an amicus brief (a brief not written by either of the parties in a case, more for commentary) on Kelli Stapleton’s crime. I can state with certainty that a judge in Bedzie County, MI will not understand autistic culture nor the demagoguery of Autism $peaks.
I just really, really want any parent, when they’re responding to the protests of autistic adults, to ask themselves whether the way they’re about to respond is how they’d want somebody to treat *their own child,* when their child is grown up and making objections to the way they’re being treated or spoken about.
Do you want your child being made the target of the same kind of condescension and dismissal of their experience that you’re about to hurl at an autistic grownup on the internet?
Because they will be. Because you–parents of autistic people–are teaching the rest of the world how it’s okay to treat autistic people.
Well said. I can personally understand the anger and despair on both sides, I have no understanding for any form of abuse, humiliation or other extremist measures or behaviours. While I have completely given up on the idea of one “autism community” I really hope that what is happening now will eventually lead to a consensus on the basic principles, a healthier exchange between the groups and that the “awareness” we are creating in the broad public will be one of acceptance and curiosity rather than rejection.
Not so much because I hate conflict and believe we should all just love and accept each other (obviously, that would be ideal) but because currently, I am quite worried about the view on autism that my own son will discover when he is old enough to take in the public discussions independently. That’s scaring me at the moment and considering that all the camps are repeatedly putting forth the interest of upcoming generations of autistics, that is something that urgently has to change.
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This is a great post, and it needs to be said and it needs to be spread around. Something I noticed in the video interview with Kelli is very important. They identify Issy as aggressive, and they identify aggression as a trait of autistics. The whole interview focuses on Issy’s violence and aggression. That is a stereotype, and most autistic kids are not violent or aggressive.
What makes some of them aggressive and others not? Dysfunctional families and societies, and that is not their fault.
No one in that interview suggested that Issy might be violent because of the example she gets from her mother. The whole interview focuses on violence as a trait of autism and blames autism for Issy’s violence. I am autistic, and I have been abused by neurotypicals (even mothers of autistic kids) and they intentionally waited for me to react so they could place all the blame on me for the conflict and abuse that they started. Neurotypicals love to do that stuff. Even the interviewer, who claims to support autistics, based the whole interview on the assumption that the autistic is always wrong; if there are violent outbursts in a family, the autistic child is always assumed guilty and that is totally unfair. People attack autistics and then blame us for being aggressive because we tried to defend ourselves, and that has happened to me lots of time, even by mothers who claim to be autism advocates.
Is it possible that Issy might have learned to be violent from her mother? When that interview was recorded, most people would probably have said that it was not her mother’s fault and something needed to be done about Issy’s violence. But we now know that Kelli attempted to murder Issy, one of the most violent things a person can do. What else don’t we know about the way that Kelli might have treated Issy? What don’t we know about most of the parents who claim they have violent autistic kids? Why are autistics assumed to be guilty until they can prove their innocence? Why don’t we look to the parents? How many other autistic kids are accused of having behavior problems, or worse, only to project a false stereotype on them? How many of those kids have a very good reason to be angry about the way they are treated, but their passive aggressive parents psychologically abuse them by blaming the kids for every domestic conflict that happens in the household? We need more attention on the ways that parents treat autistics (not just their own kids, but all autistics, even adults), and we need to stop blaming the autistics for every conflict that comes up with their parents and other neurotypicals. When autistics get blamed for everything, they become the whole society’s punching bags. Of course they are going to fight back at the whole world when they are treated like that. Believe me, the hatred from neurotypicals (even mothers of autistic kids) is way too intense to live with anymore. I have felt it myself from mothers who boast on their blogs about being so supportive of autistics, but quite of few of them are not supportive at all, they are prejudice.
Yes. Exactly this. Kelli’s use of the Lovaas technique was probably well meaning but it was also abusive, and her many attempts to transform her autistic daughter into a neurotypical child are no doubt at the root of Issy’s frustration and intense meltdowns.
Kelli planted the seed, and she has to take the consequences. A child’s purpose in life is NOT to meet her mother’s needs, and in fact it’s the other way around. Issy needed an autism friendly environment — with low stimulation, freedom to stim as much as she liked, rigid adherence to her routine, and unfortunately, sometimes, a human punching bag when those requirements couldn’t be met. If Kelli could not provide the one, she was responsible to provide the other.
I’ve seen Kelli’s blog, and was particularly struck by the “me, me, me” moaning about how “horrific” it is to be beaten up on a daily basis. Kelli, try being the subject of 24/7 ABBA “treatment” and you will know horrific. Kelli should have just taken her beatings and shut up. Instead she splashed her daughter’s personal issues all over the internet.
Kelli is also obviously not suited to be the mother of an autistic child. If you read her blog post about “retraining the Mom brain” you will see how clueless she was about her daughter’s triggers. Issy was communicating with her mother loud and clear, but Kelli wasn’t paying attention — Kelli, if your daugher beats you into unconsciousness when you try to console her distress with a hug, she is trying to tell you someting. Stop hugging her!
Possibly Issy would never be able to live independently or hold a job without getting her aggression under control. But her aggression came from meltdowns — they weren’t Issy’s fault. And what are parents for anyway? Kelli owed it to Issy to respect her autism and spend the rest of her life in exacting servitude to Issy’s need for routine (and getting punched in the head when she failed). In fact, if she simply paid more attention to her daughter’s triggers her beatings would no doubt decrease in frequency to just a few a day.
The only thing is that Kelli had two other children. When Issy’s meltdowns ended up with Kelli brain-damaged or dead, they would be deprived of their mother. But they are neurotypical children who will probably manage fine in the neurotypical world. And since Kelli is such a questionable mother, it’s probably no great loss. In any event their safety doesn’t matter as much as respecting their sister’s beautiful, authentic autistic self.
I hate to sound unsympathetic to Kelli, but if the prospect of living the rest of her life this way led her to suicidal despair, well that’s not Issy’s fault. Kelli should have just taken her own life and left the job of human punching bag to Issy’s father and siblings.
I am sorry, but are you insane?!?! Did you really just say that Kelli *owed* it to her daughter to “spend the rest of her life in exacting servitude to Issy’s need for routine (and getting punched in the head when she failed)” And that her other two children would be just fine if their mother died, because they were “neurotypical”?!?! This blog post has some good points, and shows another side to a tragedy, but you have managed to make me fear for anyone that is close to someone who has autism. Because, according to you, their parents deserve violence for not doing everything right! Scratch that, I am only scared for the people that are in *your* life.
Grr! Such parents are NOT ignorant! The know precisely what they are doing – with the darkest malice, and utmost treachery! We know why they do all of their hatred and abuse and evil! They have told us by projecting all of these thing onto us:
“as you sow, so shall you reap; and with the measure you have used, it will be measurd out unto you, Normies.”
I’m thinking Kelly figured out she was abusing Issy too late.
at least that’s a positive way of looking at it
It really hurts me when I see parents of autistic kids complain about them endlessly. The children deserve so much better than to be treated like a burden and an annoyance, and it is horrific when they are dehumanized to the point where people believe their lives aren’t worth living.
As the mother of three autistic children, I do also see the other side of it though. Autism does seem to be the one health/behavioral condition parents are not allowed to admit makes parenting more difficult. Parents raising children with bipolar, schizophrenia, cerebral palsy, or literally any other condition are allowed to talk about their struggles without people believing it makes them bad parents or be accused of hating their kids, but not parents of autistic kids. I’ve had to face the agonizing choice of whether to seek medical treatment for my baby after my older autistic child bit her so hard she ripped huge chunks of flesh or stay home and prevent a visit from CPS. Because who would believe a child would be capable of causing such injuries? But parents and siblings of autistic children get injurirs like that very frequently. It’s just the reality of autism, and parents of NT children don’t have to face struggles like that. It really is hard to bear the brunt of autistic agggression and meltdowns day in and day out. And I think that’s all parents of autistic people are trying to say, that they need help coping with a situation that simply much harder than other parents’.
I am thinking the autistic community in there actions/reactions towards this has screwed them even more so . I am an aspersion, not an autistic, I admit I was diagnoses with some things that could be deemed autistic but that does not mean I am me autistic and I could cite other insightful examples to prove my point. As the case with my people, so do thoughtful autistics have the capability of over reacting to things with out giving them a first thought over first. Autistic people have triggers that when pushed IMO, they can not stay in tuned to reality or what is supposed to be real it y. Like my people, they have a life on there on. Mine are able to come out however they may so choice, but autistic have a problem with doing so. It is this weakness that people will always put hem sown. There is the capability of the autistic community to accept positive things more often that the negative things they are going thru. I myself advocate positive things only and I will go on record as saying there is this one person who has put me down for doing so. This person thinks I am doing a disservice to people , so I so check out what reality is really like for I have heard from a fiend that this person is dillusional. In other words, he keeps his possy next to his side at all times to alway defend his thoughts. To get off my high horse , i wish all disabled people the best of luck.

domain: sociology


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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is no longer in this world. He has passed away at the age of 96. Since last Wednesday, his health was deteriorating, after which he was kept under the supervision of doctors. National mourning has been announced in Britain on his death.
Image Credit source: Twitter
queen of britain Elizabeth II No longer in this world. He has passed away at the age of 96. Since last Wednesday, his health was deteriorating, after which he was kept under the supervision of doctors. on his death Britain National mourning has been declared in this, along with the national flags of the country have also been lowered. Not only has there been despair in Britain over the death of the Queen, but the heads of state of many countries have also mourned her death. It is being told that his body will be taken to London for the last rites on Friday.
A statement issued by the royal family said that Queen Elizabeth II breathed her last at Balmoral Palace on Thursday afternoon. You will be surprised to know that Queen Elizabeth was a member of the longest reigning royal family of Britain. Now after his death, Prince Charles has been made the King of Britain. As soon as the news of the death of the Queen was received, people became active on social media and started expressing their condolences. ‘Rest In Peace’ and #QueenElizabeth are top trending on Twitter. People are giving different types of reactions.
See how despair has spread on social media
72 years of reign, the Queen of England has passed away
Her reign will go down in history forever, rest in peace Queen Elizabeth II pic.twitter.com/36VWCuTk37
— Julien (@MajorDcps) September 8, 2022
Im sure that no matter what your stances on monarchy are we all feel that today marks the end of an era. Feels like bidding a final farewell to a century long gone. My condolences, UK friends. Rest In Peace, Your Majesty. pic.twitter.com/fxjmQB3KqQ
— xena (@xenasolo) September 8, 2022
A rainbow over Windsor Castle this evening.
Condolences to the Royal Family following the death of Her Majesty, The Queen. May she rest in peace. pic.twitter.com/q7XgtcJwlG
— Phillip Monaghan (@PhilMonaghan1) September 8, 2022
— KYeung (@KY_agito12) September 8, 2022
— Barqiu (@Barqiu3) September 8, 2022
Queen Elizabeth rest in peace
— Longfield TJG (@TimLangeveld3) September 8, 2022
Smiling till the end. I have always liked the Queen. Rest in peace your Majesty 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/R8wG9ZDeiV
— Slinky (@_chasinrainbows) September 8, 2022
— Sonia Palik (@soniazp) September 8, 2022
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also condoled the death of the Queen. He tweeted that ‘Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will be remembered as a stalwart of our times. I am hurt by his death. My thoughts are with his family and the people of Britain in this time of sorrow.

domain: politics


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Pamper your pet with a custom large bowl from Zazzle! Made of 100% white ceramic, this large bowl is perfect for showing off your favorite designs, text, and photos in vivid detail. Dishwasher and microwave approved, this large bowl is as safe as it is easy to keep clean!

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This design began with a digital photograph of a downtown street scene which was taken by Marilyn Roy. Marilyn then experimented with several digital effects which included this digital ink drawing. This design, and others featuring the downtown street scene with other treatments, is available at our Zazzle, MarBeth Urbanscapes. http://www.zazzle.com/MarBethUrbanscapes

domain: design


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Honduras is a constitutional, multiparty republic. The country last held national and local elections in November 2017. Voters elected Juan Orlando Hernandez of the National Party as president for a four-year term beginning in January 2018. International observers generally recognized the elections as free but disputed the fairness and transparency of the results.
The Honduran National Police maintain internal security and report to the Secretariat of Security. The armed forces, which report to the Secretariat of Defense, are responsible for external security but also exercise some domestic security responsibilities in a supporting role to the national police and other civilian authorities. Some larger cities have police forces that operate independently of the national police and report to municipal authorities. The Military Police of Public Order report to military authorities but conduct operations sanctioned by civilian security officials as well as by military leaders. The National Interinstitutional Security Force is an interagency command that coordinates the overlapping responsibilities of the national police, military police of public order, National Intelligence Directorate, and Public Ministry during interagency operations. Although the Interinstitutional Security Force reports to the National Security and Defense Council, it plays a coordinating role and did not exercise broad command and control functions over other security forces except during interagency operations involving those forces. Civilian authorities at times did not maintain effective control over security forces. Members of the security forces committed some abuses.
Significant human rights issues included: unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; killings of and threats to media members by criminal elements; criminalization of libel, although no cases were reported; serious acts of corruption including by high level officials; lack of investigation of and accountability for violence against women; and threats and violence against indigenous, Afro-descendant communities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons.
The government continued to prosecute some officials who committed abuses, but a weak judicial system and corruption were major obstacles to gaining convictions. The national curfew and shutdown of government offices in response to COVID-19 severely hampered government efforts to address abuses during most of the year.
Organized-crime groups, including local and transnational gangs and narcotics traffickers, were significant perpetrators of violent crimes and committed acts of homicide, torture, kidnapping, extortion, human trafficking, intimidation, and other threats and violence directed against human rights defenders, judicial authorities, lawyers, business community members, journalists, bloggers, women, and other vulnerable populations. The government investigated and prosecuted many of these crimes, particularly through the national police’s Violent Crimes Task Force.
Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from:
a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings
There were several reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings. The reported killings took place during law enforcement operations or were linked to other criminal activity by government agents. The Ministry of Security’s Directorate of Disciplinary Police Affairs (DIDADPOL) investigated members of the Honduran National Police (HNP) accused of human rights abuses. The Office of the Inspector General of the Armed Forces and the Humanitarian Law Directorate investigated and arrested members of the military accused of human rights abuses. Impunity, however, remained a serious problem, with significant delays in some prosecutions and sources alleging corruption in judicial proceedings.
The Autonomous University of Honduras Violence Observatory reported 13 arbitrary or unlawful killings by security forces during the year. The Public Ministry reported five such cases undergoing trial, with four cases in the sentencing phase of trial. Five other cases were under investigation. DIDADPOL conducted internal investigations of HNP members in a continuation of the police purge begun in 2016.
On September 16, the Public Ministry filed an indictment against army military police officer Josue Noe Alvarado Giron for the April 24 murder of Marvin Rolando Alvarado Santiago at a military roadblock in Omoa, Cortes. Josue Alvarado allegedly shot Marvin Alvarado after a heated discussion over Marvin Alvarado’s failure to wear a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic. Josue Alvarado was assigned to Task Force Maya Chorti.
On February 4, media reported unknown assailants shot and killed three National Party local leaders in three separate incidents within five days in Tegucigalpa: Oscar Obdulio Licona Ruiz on January 31 and Dagoberto Villalta and Marcial Martinez on February 4.
The government continued to prosecute individuals allegedly involved in the 2016 killing of environmental and indigenous activist Berta Caceres. The legal process against Roberto David Castillo Mejia, one of the alleged intellectual authors of the killing, continued slowly due to motions and appeals by the defense, and Castillo remained incarcerated. On November 23, the court halted the presentation of evidence hearing after the defense filed an appeal. The appeals court would have to rule on the motion before the trial could move forward.
Reports of violence related to land conflicts and criminal activity continued. On April 2, a private security guard for the sugar company La Grecia shot and killed land rights defender Iris Argentina Alvarez Chavez during a confrontation between land rights defenders and private guards. Police later arrested the guard accused of killing Alvarez.
Organized-crime organizations, such as drug traffickers and local and transnational gangs including MS-13 and the 18th Street gang, committed killings, extortion, kidnappings, human trafficking, and intimidation of police, prosecutors, journalists, women, and human rights defenders. Major urban centers and drug-trafficking routes experienced the highest rates of violence.
There were no credible reports of disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Although the law prohibits such practices, government officials received complaints and investigated alleged abuses by members of the security forces on the streets and in detention centers.
The Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) reported 28 cases of alleged torture by security forces through September, while the Public Ministry received three such reports. The quasi-governmental National Committee for the Prevention of Torture, Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment (CONAPREV) received 210 complaints of the use of torture or cruel and inhuman treatment, many related to the enforcement of the national curfew during the COVID-19 pandemic. COFADEH reported police beat and smeared a tear gas-covered cloth on the face of an individual detained for violating the national curfew in April in El Paraiso.
Corruption along with a lack of investigative resources and judicial delays led to widespread impunity, including in security forces. DIDADPOL investigated abuses by police forces. The Office of the Inspector General of the Armed Forces and the Humanitarian Law Directorate investigated abuses by the military. The National Human Rights Commission of Honduras received complaints about human rights abuses and referred them to the Public Ministry for investigation. The Secretariat of Human Rights provided training to security forces to increase respect for human rights. Through September the secretariat trained 2,764 law enforcement officials in human rights and international humanitarian law.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Prison conditions were harsh and sometimes life-threatening due to pervasive gang-related violence and the government’s failure to control criminal activity within the prisons. Prisoners suffered from overcrowding, insufficient access to food and water, violence, and alleged abuse by prison officials.
Physical Conditions: Prisoners suffered from severe overcrowding, malnutrition, lack of adequate sanitation and medical care, and, in some prisons, lack of adequate ventilation and lighting. The Secretariat of Human Rights reported that as of September 2, the total prison population was 21,675 in 25 prisons and three detention centers. According to the secretariat, the system had a designed capacity for approximately 10,600 inmates.
The National Prison Institute (INP) reported 12 violent deaths. On June 11, alleged members of the 18th Street gang in the National Women’s Penitentiary in Tegucigalpa killed six alleged members of the MS-13 gang.
As of September the Secretariat of Human Rights reported the country’s three pretrial detention centers held 79 individuals. These INP-administered centers were on military installations and received some support services from the military. The government used pretrial detention centers to hold high-profile suspects and those in need of additional security. Long periods of pretrial detention remained common and problematic, with many other pretrial detainees held in the general population with convicted prisoners.
The government failed to control pervasive gang-related violence and criminal activity within the prisons. Many prisons lacked sufficient security personnel. Many prisoners had access to weapons and other contraband, inmates attacked other inmates with impunity, and inmates and their associates outside prison threatened prison officials and their families. These conditions contributed to an unstable, dangerous environment in the penitentiary system. Media reported prison riots and violent confrontations between gang members in prisons throughout the year.
In response to the pervasive violence in the prison system, the government declared an emergency in the National Penitentiary System in December 2019. The emergency decree instituted the Interinstitutional Force as an auditing commission for the penitentiary system. This force is composed of active members of the army and national police. Despite the emergency decree, CONAPREV reported that violence in the prison system continued unabated.
Authorities did not generally segregate those with tuberculosis or other infectious diseases from the general prison population; as of September the INP reported 153 prisoners were being treated for tuberculosis. The lack of space for social distancing combined with the lack of adequate sanitation made prison conditions even more life threatening during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported 1,695 cases of COVID-19 in 25 prisons as of September, including cases among medical personnel, security personnel, and administrators. CONAPREV reported 27 prisoner deaths due to COVID-19 through August. There was only limited support for persons with mental illnesses or disabilities. CONAPREV reported every prison had a functioning health clinic with at least one medical professional, but basic medical supplies and medicines were in short supply throughout the prison system. In most prisons only inmates who purchased bottled water or had water filters in their cells had access to potable water.
Administration: The judicial system was legally responsible for monitoring prison conditions and providing for the rights of prisoners. The government tasks CONAPREV with visiting prisons and making recommendations for protecting the rights of prisoners. CONAPREV conducted more than 84 visits to adult prisons as of the end of August. Media reports noted that family members often faced long delays or were unable to visit detainees.
Independent Monitoring: The government generally permitted prison visits by independent local and international human rights observers, including the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Improvements: Through August, CONAPREV trained 494 technical, administrative, and security personnel on topics including prison management and human rights.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention and provides for the right of any person to challenge the lawfulness of his or her arrest or detention in court. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) reported that authorities at times failed to enforce these requirements effectively.
Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees
The law provides that police may make arrests only with a warrant unless: they make the arrest during the commission of a crime, there is strong suspicion that a person has committed a crime and might otherwise evade criminal prosecution, they catch a person in possession of evidence related to a crime, or a prosecutor has ordered the arrest after obtaining a warrant. The law requires police to inform persons of the grounds for their arrest and bring detainees before a competent judicial authority within 24 hours. It stipulates that a prosecutor has 24 additional hours to decide if there is probable cause for indictment, whereupon a judge has 24 more hours to decide whether to issue a temporary detention order. Such an order may be effective for up to six days, after which the judge must hold a pretrial hearing to examine whether there is probable cause to continue pretrial detention. The law allows persons charged with some felonies to avail themselves of bail and gives prisoners the right of prompt access to family members. The law allows the release of other suspects pending formal charges, on the condition that they periodically report to authorities, although management of this reporting mechanism was often weak. The government generally respected these provisions. Persons suspected of any of 22 specific felonies must remain in custody, pending the conclusion of judicial proceedings against them. Some judges, however, ruled that such suspects may be released on the condition that they continue to report periodically to authorities. The law grants prisoners the right to prompt access to a lawyer of their choice and, if indigent, to government-provided counsel, although the public defender mechanism was weak, and authorities did not always abide by these requirements.
Arbitrary Arrest: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government instituted a national curfew, suspending constitutional provisions and limiting the free movement of individuals. Peace Brigades International (PBI) reported more than 34,000 persons were detained for violating the curfew. The Human Rights Board condemned some of these arrests as arbitrary under the guise of curfew enforcement. According to the Center for the Investigation and Promotion of Human Rights, on March 24, police arbitrarily detained Evelyn Johana Castillo, sub-coordinator of the Women’s Network of Ojojona and member of the National Network of Defenders of Human Rights. Castillo was returning from the market at 3:30 p.m. when a police officer arrested her for violating the curfew, even though the curfew did not start until 7:00 p.m. Castillo said the arrest was a reprisal for an encounter a few days previously, when Castillo confronted the officer who was attempting to expel a vendor from a park. The Public Ministry reported 15 cases of alleged illegal detention or arbitrary arrest as of November.
Pretrial Detention: Judicial inefficiency, corruption, and insufficient resources delayed proceedings in the criminal justice system, and lengthy pretrial detention was a serious problem. For crimes with minimum sentences of six years’ imprisonment, the law authorizes pretrial detention of up to two years. The prosecution may request an additional six-month extension, but many detainees remained in pretrial detention much longer, including for more time than the maximum period of incarceration for their alleged crime. The law does not authorize pretrial detention for crimes with a maximum sentence of five years or less. The law mandates that authorities release detainees whose cases have not yet come to trial and whose time in pretrial detention already exceeds the maximum prison sentence for their alleged crime. Even so, many prisoners remained in custody after completing their full sentences, and sometimes even after an acquittal, because officials failed to process their releases expeditiously.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The law provides for an independent judiciary, but the justice system was poorly funded and staffed, inadequately equipped, often ineffective, and subject to intimidation, corruption, politicization, and patronage. Low salaries and a lack of internal controls rendered judicial officials susceptible to bribery, although the Supreme Court significantly raised salaries during the year and made improvements in transparency. Powerful special interests, including organized-crime groups, exercised influence on the outcomes of some court proceedings.
The law provides for the right to a fair and public trial; however, the judiciary did not always enforce this right.
The law presumes an accused person is innocent. The accused has the right to an initial hearing before a judge, to ask for bail, consult with legal counsel in a timely manner, have a lawyer provided by the state if necessary, and request an appeal. Defendants may receive free assistance from an interpreter. The law permits defendants to confront witnesses against them and offer witnesses and evidence in their defense. Defendants may not be compelled to testify or confess guilt. Authorities generally respected these rights.
Credible observers noted problems in trial procedures, such as a lack of admissible evidence, judicial corruption, widespread public distrust of the legal system, witness intimidation, and an ineffective witness protection program.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
There were no credible reports of political prisoners or detainees.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
The law establishes an independent and impartial judiciary in civil matters, including access to a court to seek damages for human rights violations. Litigants may sue a criminal defendant for damages if authorized by a criminal court. Individuals and organizations may appeal adverse domestic decisions to the Inter-American Human Rights System.
f. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
Although the law generally prohibits such actions, a legal exception allows government authorities to enter a private residence to prevent a crime or in case of another emergency. There were credible complaints that police occasionally failed to obtain the required authorization before entering private homes.
Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Expression, Including for the Press
The law provides for freedom of expression, including for the press, with some restrictions, and the government generally respected this right. An independent press and a functioning democratic political system combined to promote freedom of expression, including for the press.
Freedom of Speech: The law includes a provision to punish persons who directly or through public media incite discrimination, contempt, repression, or violence against a person, group, or organization for reasons of gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, political opinion or affiliation, marital status, race or national origin, language, nationality, religion, family affiliation, family or economic situation, disability, health, physical appearance, or any other characteristic that would offend the victim’s human dignity.
Freedom of Press and Media, Including Online Media: Independent media were active and expressed a wide variety of views without restriction. A small number of powerful business magnates with intersecting commercial, political, and family ties owned most of the major news media.
The government allocated a budget of nearly 12.6 million lempiras ($526,000) for the continued operation of a protection mechanism that included provision of protection to journalists. By August it had provided protection to two journalists, among other types of activists and human rights defenders. Some nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) expressed concern about weak implementation of the law and limited resources available to operate the government’s protection mechanism. Civil society organizations criticized the government’s failure to investigate threats adequately.
The HNP’s Violent Crimes Task Force investigated crimes against high-profile and particularly vulnerable victims, including journalists as well as judges, human rights activists, and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community.
Censorship or Content Restrictions: Media members and NGOs stated the press self-censored due to fear of retaliation from organized-crime groups or corrupt government officials.
Libel/Slander Laws: Citizens, including public officials, may initiate criminal proceedings for libel and slander. No cases were reported during the year.
Nongovernmental Impact: Some journalists and other members of civil society reported threats from members of organized-crime groups. It was unclear how many of these threats were related to the victims’ professions or activism. Several anonymous social media sites, possibly linked to political parties, criticized journalists (as well as activists and civil society organizations) who were critical of the government or opposition party policies.
On July 1, unknown assailants on a motorcycle shot and killed television journalist German Vallecillo and cameraman Jorge Posas in La Ceiba. Police arrested Ramon David Zelaya Hernandez on July 4 and Edward David Zalavarria Galeas on July 6 as the two main suspects in the killings. Both suspects were alleged members of a criminal organization involved in drug trafficking.
The government did not restrict or disrupt access to the internet or censor online content, and there were no credible reports that the government monitored private online communications without appropriate legal authority.
Academic Freedom and Cultural Events
There were no government restrictions on academic freedom or cultural events.
b. Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The constitution provides for the freedoms of peaceful assembly and association. The government limited freedom of peaceful assembly under the national curfew imposed in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Freedom of Peaceful Assembly
The law provides for freedom of peaceful assembly, and the government generally respected this right. The law requires a judge to issue an eviction order for individuals occupying public and private property if security forces have not evicted the individuals within a specified period of time. Some local and international civil society organizations, including students, agricultural workers groups, political parties, and indigenous rights groups, alleged that members of the security forces used excessive force to break up demonstrations. The IACHR reported the government at times used a policy of arbitrary detentions or arrests to inhibit protest. Under the national emergency and corresponding curfew, the government suspended the constitutional right to peaceful assembly. The curfew severely limited freedom of movement and banned large gatherings.
COFADEH reported an increase of complaints regarding the use of excessive and disproportionate force by security forces under the national curfew. During April, the first full month of the curfew, COFADEH reported 11,471 complaints of arbitrary actions by security forces, mainly abusive detentions for curfew violators. The PBI reported an incident on April 23 near Tela, Atlantida Department, involving the alleged use of live rounds by police in response to a protest, injuring two individuals. On May 5, the DIDADPOL director noted his office had not received a formal complaint, and he asserted two official police reports from the incident did not corroborate the PBI’s account.
Freedom of Association
The law provides for freedom of association, and the government generally respected this right. The law prohibits illicit association, defined as gatherings by persons bearing arms, explosive devices, or dangerous objects with the purpose of committing a crime, and prescribes prison terms of two to four years and a moderate fine for anyone who convokes or directs an illicit meeting or demonstration. There were no reports of such cases during the year, although authorities charged some protesters with sedition. Public-sector unions expressed concern about some officials refusing to honor bargaining agreements and firing union leaders. The law prohibits police from unionizing (see section 7.a.).
c. Freedom of Religion
d. Freedom of Movement
The law provides for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, and repatriation, and the government generally respected these rights. The national curfew instituted in response to COVID-19, however, severely limited the freedom of internal movement.
In-country Movement: Under the national curfew from March 16, the government limited freedom of movement by allowing individuals to move outside their homes one day every two weeks. Starting November 9, the government temporarily suspended the curfew to facilitate Tropical Depression Eta response efforts. Unrelated to the curfew, there were areas where authorities could not assure freedom of movement because of criminal activity and a lack of significant government presence.
e. Status and Treatment of Internally Displaced Persons
In 2019 the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center NGO estimated there were approximately 247,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country due to violence. Internal displacement was generally caused by violence, national and transnational gang activity, and human trafficking. Official data on forced internal displacement was limited in part because gangs controlled many of the neighborhoods that were sources of internal displacement (see section 6, Displaced Children).
The government maintained the Interinstitutional Commission for the Protection of Persons Displaced by Violence and created the Directorate for the Protection of Persons Internally Displaced by Violence within the Secretariat of Human Rights. Both the ministry and the commission focused on developing policies to address IDPs. Under the Regional Integral Framework for Protection and Solutions, with significant support from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the government continued to build capacity to provide services to key population groups, including IDPs, those at risk of forced displacement, refugees, and returned migrants, through 14 commitments and 28 specific actions between 2018 and 2020.
f. Protection of Refugees
The government cooperated with UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations that provide protection and assistance to refugees and other persons of concern.
Abuse of Migrants, Refugees, and Stateless Persons: Transiting migrants and asylum seekers with pending cases were vulnerable to abuse by criminal organizations. The legal framework for granting international protection fails to establish long-term safeguards for recognized refugees, since they are issued the same residence permit as other migration categories.
Access to Asylum: The law provides for the granting of asylum or refugee status. The government had a nascent system to provide protection to refugees. The shutdown of government offices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic caused a substantial delay in the processing of asylum cases, with no cases fully adjudicated of 53 new applications received through August. The Refugee Commission suspended operations shortly after the onset of the pandemic but began reviewing applications again as of June. The National Migration Institute secretary general, responsible for final case determinations, had not resumed this function as of October.
Section 3. Freedom to Participate in the Political Process
The law provides citizens the right to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections held by secret ballot and based on nearly universal and equal suffrage. The law does not permit active members of the military or civilian security forces to vote. The constitution prohibits practicing clergy from running for office or participating in political campaigns.
Elections and Political Participation
Recent Elections: In December 2017 Juan Orlando Hernandez of the National Party was declared the winner in the November elections. International observers generally agreed the elections were free but disputed the fairness and transparency of the results. The Organization of American States (OAS) and EU observer teams agreed the margin of victory separating incumbent president Hernandez from challenger Salvador Nasralla was extremely narrow. The OAS mission found that the 1.5 percent margin of victory, combined with numerous irregularities in vote processing, left it unable to state with certainty who won the presidential election. The EU mission agreed there were serious irregularities in the process but concluded that safeguards built into the system, including posting of voting results forms on a public website, helped promote transparency. NGOs reported irregularities, including problems with voter rolls, buying and selling of electoral workers’ credentials, and lack of transparency in campaign financing.
Political Parties and Political Participation: Civil society and opposition parties accused officials of using government resources to attract voters.
Participation of Women and Members of Minority Groups: No laws limit the participation of women or members of minority groups in the political process, and they did participate. Women held 21 percent of seats in the National Congress, down from 26 percent prior to the 2017 elections. At the local level, only 7 percent of elected mayors were women, but women represented 76 percent of the elected vice mayors.
Section 4. Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government
The law provides for criminal penalties for corruption by officials, but authorities did not implement the law effectively, and officials continued to engage in corrupt practices with impunity. There were numerous reports of government corruption during the year. The government took steps to address corruption at high levels in government agencies, including arresting and charging members of congress, judges, prosecutors, sitting and former senior officials, mayors and other local authorities, and police officers. Anticorruption efforts remained an area of concern, as did the government’s ability to protect justice sector officials, such as prosecutors and judges.
Following months of negotiation, the government and the OAS did not reach an agreement to maintain the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), and its mandate expired in January. The Public Ministry created a new anticorruption unit, the Special Prosecution Unit against Corruption Networks, which is charged with pursuing MACCIH legacy corruption cases.
Corruption: On March 13, the Supreme Court of Justice ordered a new trial for former first lady Rosa Elena Bonilla de Lobo, spouse of former president Porfirio Lobo, who was convicted in August 2019 of fraud and misappropriation of public funds and sentenced to 58 years in prison. The Supreme Court of Justice cited the presence of MACCIH personnel during Public Ministry investigations, including in the execution of search warrants in violation of the law. A specialized anticorruption sentencing tribunal ordered her release from pretrial detention on July 23. As of September no new trial date had been set. On August 5, an appeals court dismissed charges against 22 defendants indicted in the so-called Pandora case, a 2013 scheme that allegedly funneled 289.4 million lempiras ($12 million) in government agricultural funds to political campaigns. The appeals court ruled the cases of former agriculture minister Jacobo Regalado and three members of his staff should proceed to trial.
During the year the National Anticorruption Council reported numerous irregularities in the purchase of emergency medical supplies during the pandemic. The council presented 11 reports in a series called, Corruption in the Times of COVID-19. The reports alleged illicit gains of more than 1.64 billion lempiras ($68 million) by government officials in the purchase of medical supplies. Invest-H, the agency in charge of purchasing medical supplies during the pandemic, purchased seven mobile hospitals for 1.13 billion lempiras ($47 million), more than 289.4 million lempiras ($12 million) above the manufacturer’s quoted price. The director of Invest-H, Marco Antonio Bogran Corrales, resigned from his position in July and was indicted in October on two corruption charges for embezzling an estimated 1.3 million lempiras ($54,000) in public funds and funneling a contract for mobile hospitals to his uncle. Authorities arrested Bogran on October 5 and released him on October 8 on bail pending trial. The director of the national disaster management agency, Gabriel Rubi, was removed from his position in April.
Financial Disclosure: Public officials are subject to a financial disclosure law but did not always comply. The law mandates that the Supreme Auditing Tribunal monitor and verify disclosures. The tribunal published its reports on its website and cited the names of public officials who did not comply with the disclosure law.
Section 5. Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights
A wide variety of domestic and international human rights groups generally operated without government restriction, investigating and publishing their findings on human rights cases. Government officials were somewhat cooperative and responsive to their views, but some human rights organizations criticized government officials for lack of access and responsiveness.
Government Human Rights Bodies: A semiautonomous commissioner for human rights, Roberto Herrera Caceres, served as an ombudsman and investigated complaints of human rights abuses. With offices throughout the country, the ombudsman received cases that otherwise might not have risen to national attention. The Secretariat of Human Rights served as an effective advocate for human rights within the government. The Public Ministry’s Office of the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights handled cases involving charges of human rights abuses by government officials. The Public Ministry also has the Special Prosecutor’s Office for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, Journalists, Social Communicators, and Justice Officials. There is also a Human Rights Committee in the National Congress. The Ministries of Security and Defense both have human rights offices that investigated alleged human rights abuses and coordinated human rights-related activities with the Secretariat of Human Rights.
Section 6. Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons
Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes all forms of rape of women or men, including spousal rape. The government considers rape a crime of public concern, and the state prosecutes rapists even if victims do not press charges. The penalties for rape range from three to nine years’ imprisonment, and the courts enforced these penalties.
According to Autonomous University of Honduras Violence Observatory statistics, killings of women decreased under the national curfew in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Violence Observatory reported 55 killings of women from March 15 to June 6, compared with 102 for the same period in 2019. The Secretariat of Human Rights noted an exponential increase in gender-based violence and domestic violence during the national curfew. Statistics from the National Emergency System’s call center showed the country was on pace for more than 100,000 reports of domestic violence during the year.
The law criminalizes domestic violence and provides penalties of up to four years in prison for domestic violence. If a victim’s physical injuries do not reach the severity required to categorize the violence as a criminal act, the legal penalty for a first offense is a sentence of one to three months of community service. Female victims of domestic violence are entitled to certain protective measures, such as removal of the abuser from the home and prohibiting the abuser from visiting the victim’s work or other frequently visited places. Abusers caught in the act may be detained for up to 24 hours as a preventive measure. The law provides a maximum sentence of three years in prison for disobeying a restraining order connected with the crime of intrafamilial violence.
The law was not effectively enforced, and weak public institutional structures contributed to the inadequate enforcement. With high rates of impunity, including 90 percent for killings of women in the last 15 years according to the Violence Observatory, civil society groups reported that women often did not report domestic violence, or withdrew the charges, because they feared or were economically dependent on the aggressor. In addition, women experienced delays in accessing justice due to police who failed to process complaints in a timely manner or judicial system officials who deferred scheduling hearings. Institutions such as the judiciary, Public Ministry, National Police, and Secretariat of Health attempted to enhance their responses to domestic violence, but obstacles included insufficient political will, inadequate budgets, limited or no services in rural areas, absence of or inadequate training and awareness of domestic violence among police and other authorities, and a pattern of male-dominant culture and norms.
In cooperation with the UN Development Program, the government operated consolidated reporting centers in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula where women could report crimes, seek medical and psychological attention, and receive other services. These reporting centers were in addition to the 298 government-operated women’s offices–one in each municipality–that provided a wide array of services to women, focusing on education, personal finance, health, social and political participation, environmental stewardship, and prevention of gender-based violence.
Sexual Harassment: The law criminalizes various forms of sexual harassment. Violators face penalties of one to three years in prison and possible suspension of their professional licenses, but the government did not effectively enforce the law.
Reproductive Rights: Generally, individuals have the right to decide freely the number, spacing, and timing of having children and to have access to the information and means to do so, free from discrimination, coercion, or violence. Contraception supplies continued to be limited by shortages and insufficient funding. NGOs continued to criticize the government prohibition on emergency contraception, including for survivors of sexual violence, although the government did provide victims of sexual violence access to other health care services. Women and girls may face criminal penalties after having miscarriages or abortions, and NGOs reported some women delayed or avoided seeking necessary medical care for fear of being arrested.
Although 74 percent of births were attended by skilled health care personnel, NGOs reported that there were significant gaps in obstetric care, especially in rural areas. The Guttmacher Institute reported 78 percent of women of reproductive age had their need for family planning satisfied with modern methods in 2019. The World Bank reported in 2018 that the adolescent birth rate was 72 births per 1,000 15-19-year-olds.
Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities.
Discrimination: Although the law accords women and men the same legal rights and status, including property rights in divorce cases, many women did not fully enjoy such rights. Most women in the workforce engaged in lower-status and lower-paying informal occupations, such as domestic service, without the benefit of legal protections. By law women have equal access to educational opportunities.
Birth Registration: Children derive citizenship by birth in the country, from the citizenship of their parents, or by naturalization.
Child Abuse: Child abuse remained a serious problem. The law establishes prison sentences of up to three years for child abuse. As of June the Violence Observatory reported killings of 71 persons younger than 18.
Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: The minimum legal age of marriage for both boys and girls is 18. According to UNICEF, 8 percent of children were married before age 15, and 34 percent before age 18.
Sexual Exploitation of Children: The commercial sexual exploitation of children, especially in sex trafficking, remained a problem. The country was a destination for child sex tourism. The legal age of consent is 18. There is no statutory rape law, but the penalty for rape of a minor younger than 12 is 15 to 20 years in prison, or nine to 13 years in prison if the victim is 13 or older. Penalties for facilitating child sex trafficking are 10 to 15 years in prison, with substantial fines. The law prohibits the use of children younger than 18 for exhibitions or performances of a sexual nature or in the production of pornography.
Displaced Children: Civil society organizations reported that common causes of forced displacement for youth included death threats for failure to pay extortion, attempted recruitment by gangs, witnessing criminal activity by gangs or organized-crime groups, domestic violence, attempted kidnappings, family members’ involvement in drug dealing, victimization by traffickers, rape including commercial sexual exploitation by gangs, discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, sexual harassment, and discrimination for having a chronic medical condition.
International Child Abductions: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at .
The Jewish community numbered approximately 275 members. There were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.
Trafficking in Persons
Persons with Disabilities
The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities. The Public Ministry is responsible for prosecuting violations. The law requires that persons with disabilities have access to buildings, but few buildings were accessible, and the national government did not effectively implement laws or programs to provide such access.
The government has an Office for Persons with Disabilities located within the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion, but its ability to provide services to persons with disabilities was limited. Mental health professionals expressed concern about social stigma by families and communities against persons with mental disabilities and a lack of access to mental health care throughout the country.
Children with disabilities attended school at a lower rate than the general population. World Bank statistics put net enrollment for primary school above 90 percent, but the National Center for Social Sector Information stated that 43 percent of persons with disabilities received no formal education.
In the 2013 census, approximately 8.5 percent of the population identified themselves as members of indigenous communities, but other estimates were higher. Indigenous groups included the Miskito, Tawahkas, Pech, Tolupans, Lencas, Maya-Chortis, Nahual, Bay Islanders, and Garifunas. They had limited representation in the national government and consequently little direct input into decisions affecting their lands, cultures, traditions, and the allocation of natural resources.
Indigenous communities continued to report threats and acts of violence against them and against community and environmental activists. Violence was often rooted in a broader context of conflict over land and natural resources, extensive corruption, lack of transparency and community consultation, other criminal activity, and limited state ability to protect the rights of vulnerable communities.
On January 10, unknown assailants shot and killed Tolupan indigenous leader Vicente Saavedra in Morazan, Yoro Department. On June 19, Garifuna leader Antonio Bernardez was found dead from bullet wounds six days after his disappearance. Bernardez was a leader in the Punta Piedra community. Police were investigating the killings.
On July 18, heavily armed men kidnapped five men from their homes in the town of Triunfo de la Cruz. The victims were land-rights defenders from the Afro-descendant Garifuna minority group. According to witnesses, the kidnappers wore police investigative branch uniforms. Authorities launched an investigation and made one arrest in connection with the kidnappings in July and five more arrests in September.
Ethnic minority rights leaders, international NGOs, and farmworker organizations continued to claim the government failed to redress actions taken by security forces, government agencies, and private individuals and businesses to dislodge farmers and indigenous persons from lands over which they claimed ownership based on land reform law or ancestral land titles.
Persons from indigenous and Afro-descendant communities continued to experience discrimination in employment, education, housing, and health services. An IACHR report noted there were insufficient hospital beds and inadequate supplies at the only hospital that services Gracias a Dios Department, home to the majority of the Miskito community.
Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
The Association for a Better Life and the Cattrachas Lesbian Network both reported 16 violent deaths of LGBTI persons as of September. On July 10, unidentified assailants shot and killed transgender activist Scarleth Campbell in Tegucigalpa. Campbell was an LGBTI activist and member of the Rainbow Dolls, an organization that fought violence and discrimination against members of the LGBTI community.
The law states that sexual orientation and gender-identity characteristics merit special protection from discrimination and includes these characteristics in a hate crimes amendment to the penal code. Nevertheless, social discrimination against LGBTI persons persisted, as did physical violence. Impunity for such crimes was a problem, as was the impunity rate for all types of crime. According to the Violence Observatory, of the 317 reported cases from 2009 through 2019 of hate crimes and violence against members of the LGBTI population, 92 percent had gone unpunished.
LGBTI rights groups asserted that government agencies and private employers engaged in discriminatory hiring practices. Transgender women were particularly vulnerable to employment and education discrimination; many could find employment only as sex workers, increasing their vulnerability to violence and extortion. The COVID-19 lockdown and curfew affected sex workers’ income and further exacerbated existing vulnerabilities. Underscoring heightened risks facing transgender women involved in sex work, the PBI cited three alleged incidents where security forces degraded transgender women for violating the nationwide COVID-19 curfew, including by striking at least one of the individuals. Transgender individuals noted their inability to update identity documents to reflect their gender identity.
HIV and AIDS Social Stigma
Persons with HIV and AIDS continued to be targets of discrimination, and they suffered disproportionately from gender-based violence.
Section 7. Worker Rights
a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining
The law grants workers the right to form and join unions of their choice, bargain collectively, and strike. It prohibits employer retribution against employees for engaging in trade union activities. The law places restrictions on these rights, such as requiring that a recognized trade union represent at least 30 workers, prohibiting foreign nationals from holding union offices, and requiring that union officials work in the same substantive area of the business as the workers they represent. The law prohibits members of the armed forces and police, as well as certain other public employees, from forming labor unions.
The law requires an employer to begin collective bargaining once workers establish a union, and it specifies that if more than one union exists at a company, the employer must negotiate with the largest.
The law allows only local unions to call strikes, prohibits labor federations and confederations from calling strikes, and requires that a two-thirds majority of both union and nonunion employees at an enterprise approve a strike. The law prohibits workers from legally striking until after they have attempted and failed to come to agreement with their employer, and it requires workers and employers to participate in a mediation and conciliation process. In addition the law prohibits strikes in a wide range of economic activities that the government has designated as essential services or that it considers would affect the rights of individuals in the larger community to security, health, education, and economic and social well-being.
The law permits workers in public health care, social security, staple food production, and public utilities (municipal sanitation, water, electricity, and telecommunications) to strike as long as they continue to provide basic services. The law also requires that public-sector workers involved in the refining, transportation, and distribution of petroleum products submit their grievances to the Secretariat of Labor and Social Security (STSS) before striking. The law permits strikes by workers in export-processing zones and free zones for companies that provide services to industrial parks, but it requires that strikes not impede the operations of other factories in such parks. The STSS has the power to declare a work stoppage illegal, and employers may discipline employees consistent with their internal regulations, including by firing strikers, if the STSS rules that a work stoppage is illegal.
The government did not effectively enforce the law. Nearly two years after passage of a comprehensive labor inspection law in 2017, the STSS released implementing regulations based on extensive consultations with the private sector and unions. Employers frequently refused to comply with STSS orders that required them to reinstate workers who had been dismissed for participating in union activities. By law the STSS may fine companies that violate the right to freedom of association. The law permits fines, and while the monetary penalty is commensurate with those for other laws involving denials of civil rights, such as discrimination, the failure of the government to collect those fines facilitated continued labor law violations. In all of 2019, the STSS levied fines of more than 38.1 million lempiras ($1.58 million) but collected only 755,000 lempiras ($31,300). Both the STSS and the courts may order a company to reinstate workers, but the STSS lacked the means to verify compliance. While there were cases where a worker was reinstated, such as the reinstatement of a union leader in Tegucigalpa following his unlawful dismissal, the reinstatement process in the courts was unduly long, lasting from six months to more than five years.
Workers had difficulty exercising the rights to form and join unions and to engage in collective bargaining, and the government failed to enforce applicable laws effectively. Public-sector trade unionists raised concerns about government interference in trade union activities, including its suspension or ignoring of collective agreements and its dismissals of union members and leaders.
Some employers either refused to engage in collective bargaining or made it very difficult to do so. Some companies also delayed appointing or failed to appoint representatives for required STSS-led mediation, a practice that prolonged the mediation process and impeded the right to strike. There were allegations that companies used collective pacts, which are collective contracts with nonunionized workers, to prevent unionization and collective bargaining because only one collective contract may exist in each workplace. Unions also raised concerns about the use of temporary contracts and part-time employment, suggesting that employers used these mechanisms to prevent unionization and avoid providing full benefits.
b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The law prohibits all forms of forced labor, but the government did not effectively implement or enforce the law. Administrative penalties were insufficient to deter violations and were rarely enforced. Penalties for forced labor under antitrafficking law range from 10 to 15 years’ imprisonment, commensurate with penalties for other analogous serious crimes, such as kidnapping, but authorities often did not enforce them.
Forced labor occurred in street vending, domestic service, the transport of drugs and other illicit goods, other criminal activity, and the informal sector. Victims were primarily impoverished individuals in both rural and urban areas (see section 7.c.). Children, including from indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, particularly Miskito boys, were at risk for forced labor in the fishing, mining, construction, and hospitality industries. The law requiring prisoners to work at least five hours a day, six days a week took effect in 2016. Regulations for implementing the law remained under development as of September. The Secretariat of Human Rights stated it was taking every precaution to protect prisoners’ rights and assure that the work provided opportunities for prisoners to develop skills they could use in legal economic activities after their release.
c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment
The law prohibits all of the worst forms of child labor. The law regulates child labor, sets the minimum age for employment at age 14, and regulates the hours and types of work that minors younger than 18 may perform. By law all minors between the ages of 14 and 18 in most industries must receive special permission from the STSS to work, and the STSS must perform a home study to verify that there is an economic need for the child to work and that the child not work outside the country or in hazardous conditions, including in offshore fishing. The STSS approved 43 such authorizations through September. The vast majority of children who worked did so without STSS permits. If the STSS grants permission, children between 14 and 16 may work a maximum of four hours a day, and those between 16 and 18 may work up to six hours a day. The law prohibits night work and overtime for minors younger than 18, but the STSS may grant special permission for minors between the ages of 16 to 18 to work in the evening if such employment does not adversely affect their education.
The law requires individuals and companies that employ more than 20 school-age children at their facilities to provide a location for a school.
The government did not effectively enforce the law. Fines for child labor were not sufficient to deter violations and not commensurate with penalties for other analogous serious crimes, such as kidnapping. The law also imposes prison sentences of three to five years for child labor violations that endanger the life or morality of a child. The STSS completed 13 inspections as of March and did not find any minors working without permission. Due to pandemic restrictions imposed in March, the STSS was very limited in its ability to conduct inspections.
Estimates of the number of children younger than 18 in the country’s workforce ranged from 370,000 to 510,000. Children often worked on melon, coffee, okra, and sugarcane plantations as well as in other agricultural production; scavenged at garbage dumps; worked in the forestry, hunting, and fishing sectors; worked as domestic servants; peddled goods such as fruit; begged; washed cars; hauled goods; and labored in limestone quarrying and lime production. Most child labor occurred in rural areas. Children often worked alongside family members in agriculture and other work, such as fishing, construction, transportation, and small businesses. Some of the worst forms of child labor occurred, including commercial sexual exploitation of children, and NGOs reported that gangs often forced children to commit crimes, including homicide (see section 6, Children).
d. Discrimination with Respect to Employment and Occupation
The law prohibits discrimination based on gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, political opinion or affiliation, marital status, race or national origin, language, nationality, religion, family affiliation, family or economic situation, disability, health, physical appearance, or any other characteristic that would offend the victim’s human dignity. Penalties include prison sentences of up to five years and monetary fines. The law prohibits employers from requiring pregnancy tests as a prerequisite for employment; penalties were not sufficient to deter violations. The government did not effectively enforce these laws and regulations, although penalties were commensurate with laws related to civil rights, such as election interference. The law states that a woman’s employment should be appropriate according to her physical state and capacity. There were no reports of this law being used to limit women’s employment.
Many employers discriminated against women. Persons with disabilities, indigenous and Afro-Honduran persons, LGBTI persons, and persons with HIV or AIDS also faced discrimination in employment and occupation (see section 6).
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
There are 42 categories of monthly minimum wages, based on the industry and the size of a company’s workforce; the minimum average was above the poverty line. The law does not cover domestic workers.
The law applies equally to citizens and foreigners, regardless of gender, and prescribes a maximum eight-hour shift per day for most workers, a 44-hour workweek, and at least one 24-hour rest period for every six days of work. It also provides for paid national holidays and annual leave. The law requires overtime pay, bans excessive compulsory overtime, limits overtime to four hours a day for a maximum workday of 12 hours, and prohibits the practice of requiring workers to complete work quotas before leaving their place of employment. The law does not protect domestic workers effectively. In many industries, including agriculture, cleaning, and security, employers did not respect maternity rights or pay minimum wage, overtime, or vacation. In these sectors employers frequently paid workers for the standard 44-hour workweek no matter how many additional hours they worked. In the agricultural sector, companies frequently paid less than minimum wage to most workers, with fewer than 1 percent of agricultural workers receiving the minimum wage. In security and domestic service sectors, workers were frequently forced to work more than 60 hours per week but paid only for 44 hours.
Occupational safety and health standards were current but not effectively enforced. By law workers may remove themselves from situations that endanger their health or safety without jeopardizing continued employment. Under the new inspection law, the STSS has the authority temporarily to shut down workplaces where there is an imminent danger of fatalities; however, there were not enough trained inspectors to deter violations sufficiently. Inspectors suspended inspections in March under the national curfew in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Inspectors began undergoing virtual training in new technology in March in response to the challenges brought about by the pandemic and national curfew.
The STSS is responsible for enforcing the national minimum wage, hours of work, and occupational health and safety law, but it did so inconsistently and ineffectively. Civil society continued to raise problems with minimum wage violations, highlighting agricultural companies in the south as frequent violators. The law permits fines, and while the monetary penalty is sufficient to deter violations and commensurate with the penalties for similar crimes, such as fraud, the failure of the government to collect those fines facilitated continued labor code violations. As of September inspectors conducted 4,102 total inspections, including 268 unannounced inspections, compared with 14,039 total inspections for the same time period in 2019. The number of inspections dropped severely from 2019 as a result of the national curfew imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of November the STSS had an insufficient number of inspectors to enforce the law effectively.
Because labor inspectors continued to be concentrated in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, full labor inspections and follow-up visits to confirm compliance were far less frequent in other parts of the country. Many inspectors asked workers to provide them with transportation so that they could conduct inspections, since the STSS could not pay for travel to worksites. Credible allegations of corruption in the Secretariat of Labor continued.
The government did not effectively enforce occupational safety and health (OSH) standards, particularly in the construction, garment assembly, and agricultural sectors, as well as in the informal economy. Penalties for violations of OSH law were commensurate with penalties for similar crimes. There was no information available on any major industrial accidents. Employers rarely paid the minimum wage in the agricultural sector and paid it inconsistently in other sectors. Employers frequently penalized agricultural workers for taking legally authorized days off. Health-care workers protested the lack of adequate protective equipment and delayed salary payments during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Federation of Agroindustry Workers’ Unions reported massive layoffs and cancelation of contracts in the maquila sector during the pandemic without providing welfare benefits.
While all formal workers are entitled to social security, there were reports that both public- and private-sector employers failed to pay into the social security system. The STSS may levy a fine against companies that fail to pay social security obligations, but the amount was not sufficient to deter violations.

domain: news


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Uglee Truth 478: Meat Dreams, Glamour Shots and Penis Potatoes
Written by Uglee Sisters Podcasting on July 12, 2020
On this episode, Jamie has been having weird dreams – one of them involving meat – and Paula takes issue with her new headshot for the podcast leading to quite the sisterly squabble. Plus, we’ve got Uglee and Awkward Moments to share that, coincidentally, both revolved around breakfast. Thanks for listening!

domain: entertainment


UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA OUTREACH COLLEGE
Community Services Division
Introduction to Okinawan Dance
Info: Feb 12-Mar 12, 2017 • Sun • 1:00-3:00pm • Music Building, Room 116 • $54 • Register online HERE or call 956-8246.
Experience Okinawan culture through dance in this introductory class. Participants will learn selected dances from the Okinawan classical and folk traditions.
No experience necessary and no performance required. Bring tabi or socks to class.
Yukie Shiroma is a third-generation Okinawan-American born in Hawai`i. She has a MFA degree in dance from the University of Hawai`i. In 1987 she started the dance program at Mid-Pacific Institute where she served as Director of Dance until 2006. For over thirty years, Shiroma has studied Okinawan classical dance and theatre with Master Instructor, Cheryl Yoshie Nakasone, director of Jimpu Kai USA Kin Ryosho Ryukyu Geino Kenkyusho. In 2006 Shiroma received her teacher certification from Nakasone sensei. The same year she received an Individual Artist Fellowship Award from the Hawai`i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Shiroma currently teaches Okinawan dance in the University of Hawai`i Department of Theatre and Dance.


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Photo: Steven Martin/Flickr
Among the 175 metro markets studied by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), 86 percent saw a year-over-year increase in the median price of a single family home. That outpaces the increase seen in Q3-2014, where 73 percent recorded a boost in prices.
“Home prices in metro areas throughout the country continue to show solid price growth, up 25 percent over the past three years on average,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist.
“This is good news for current homeowners but remains a challenge for buyers who are seeing home prices continue to outpace their wages. Low interest rates helped preserve affordability last quarter, but it’ll take stronger income gains and more housing supply to help meet the pent-up demand for buying.”
Across the country, the median sales price for an existing single-family home in the fourth quarter of 2014 rose 6 percent to $208,700, compared to the same time in 2013.
The biggest year-over-year price increase was seen in the metropolitan market of Sherman-Denison, Texas: the median price rose 21.1 per cent. The priciest cities in the country remain on the West Coast, with San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara in California seeing a 10.3 per cent jump in Q4 to the median price of $855,000. That makes the market the costliest countrywide, though San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont isn’t too far behind. Its median price also counted double-digit growth, rising 10.1 percent $742,900.
Here’s a look at the metro areas, sorted by largest to smallest price increases:
The biggest boosts were seen in the Tallahassee, Florida (20.1 percent) and Reno-Sparks, Nevada (19.5 percent). Once again, the priciest properties could be found in California. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont measured a 9.4 percent increase in the fourth quarter that brought the median price of a condo up to $585,000. It was followed by Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, with a year-over-year jump of 4.8 percent to $380,200.
For more details, check out the table below:

domain: geography


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The marketplace rallied on Friday as tech shares recovered some of their losses for the month, but Wall Street continue to posted its fourth straight week of losses amid ongoing uncertainty around fiscal stimulus and a resurgence in coronavirus cases.
The Dow Jones Industrial Regular was up 1.3%, more than 350 points, on Friday, whilst the S&P 500 rose 1.6% and the tech-hefty Nasdaq Composite acquired 2.3%.
With only a few times of trading left in September, all three major averages are on keep track of to article their first monthly losses given that March, when the inventory industry hit a minimal place in the midst of coronavirus shutdowns.
Significant Tech stocks, which have been the most important resource of the market’s offer-off in September, recovered fairly on Friday: Shares of Apple rose a lot more than 3%, though Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix and Fb ended up up more than 2%.
Shares of main cruise operators also surged just after an upgrade from Barclays analysts, who reported it was time to invest in cruise shares again: Royal Caribbean Cruises was up approximately 8%, Carnival in excess of 9% and Norwegian Cruise Line in excess of 13%.
Ongoing uncertainty in excess of the future spherical of fiscal stimulus from Congress, having said that, continued to weigh on market place sentiment: Lawmakers have been trapped in a stalemate for months more than the dimension and provisions of the future coronavirus aid package.
Property Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that Democrats are getting ready a new, scaled-down reduction deal worthy of all around $2.4 trillion that they could vote on as soon as subsequent 7 days if an agreement is not reached with Republicans (the GOP has advocated for a invoice costing no more than $1.5 trillion).
What To View For
Prime Wall Street analysts recently warned that the the latest loss of life of Supreme Court docket Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—and the ensuing struggle around her successor—will further minimize the chance of a different fiscal stimulus monthly bill right before the presidential election in November. Though Trump has pledged to announce his Supreme Courtroom nominee by Saturday, Republicans have now been preparing for a confirmation battle by mobilizing votes in the Senate. The forthcoming discussion in the Senate will “formally reduce no matter what chance may well have still existed for pre-election fiscal stimulus,” Adam Crisafulli, founder of Essential Information, wrote in a current notice.
The inventory marketplace swung between gains and losses on Thursday, as worse-than-envisioned jobless statements data upset buyers but tech shares tried to rebound from latest losses. Yet another 870,000 People in america submitted unemployment promises last 7 days, though the quantity of continuing jobless promises is still nicely above 12 million—much greater than concentrations observed in preceding recessions. The work marketplace is evidently still battling, with the unemployment fee now at 8.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even though latest economic facts has signaled the get started of a recovery from the coronavirus recession, prospective clients for a swift rebound are promptly dwindling.Ongoing uncertainty about the upcoming round of fiscal stimulus from Congress and an alarming increase in new coronavirus instances in Europe and the U.S. have both equally threatened to derail the financial restoration.
Even more Reading through
Biden, Democratic Victories Would Be Very best Outcome For The Financial system, Moody’s Suggests (Forbes)
Stimulus Update: Residence Democrats Considering New, Lesser Relief Bundle (Forbes)
Shares End Increased Even Right after A different 870,000 Us citizens File For Unemployment (Forbes)
Dow Falls Around 500 Points As Tech Shares Drag Sector Reduce (Forbes)
Comprehensive coverage and live updates on the Coronavirus


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Sullivans Artificial Mini Eucalyptus Accent Wreath 14"H Green
One of the simplest ways to add a botanical touch to your tabletop is by accessorizing with greenery rings. This eucalyptus ring adds the softness of greens with the option of keeping it on display all year long.
Wreaths make a great statement in any room
Place on your mantel, tabletop or door
Wipe clean with a damp cloth if dusty


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Daniele Fortuna, an Italian sculptor born and raised in Milan has found success in his new take on ancient art.
Fortuna saw the ancient artwork of Greek mythology, and put his own spin on it. Fortuna began sculpting pieces of Hercules, Aphrodite, Apollo, and an Egyptian pharaoh with the use of wood and added bright pops of color to them. These colors range from bright blue, yellow, and pink. He has noted that these colors were specifically pop inspired, and it can be said that these colors are what gives these old images new and modern life. Fortuna has said that he was mainly inspired by the stories he imagined were behind the ancient work of Greek mythology and ancient history.
His unique style as a sculptor is his use of smaller pieces of cut wood that he cuts by hand individually. He stacks these pieces in order to create a larger and more distinct image. When looking at the grand final statue that he has created, it is amazing to imagine the detail he puts into every wood carving he makes to produce the final result. Fortuna’s work is not limited to just bright and exuberant colors on the wood statues, he also has played with the use of glitter in many of his pieces in which he titles them “Glitterphobia.” The use of these colors, glitter, and other shiny pigments that he uses on his work truly embody the bright essence that Fortuna displays as an artist of the modern age, with his beautiful attention to detail in each piece of wood that he cuts and creates.


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Specializing in Fresh, Modern, and Chic Wedding and Portrait Photography in Tucson, Phoenix, Arizona, Kansas City
Here is her big debut as a first-time model. I bet you can’t guess how old she is. That’s exactly what IView full post »
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domain: artistic


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Droncit (praziquantel) is a broad-spectrum cestocide for dogs and cats with the active ingredient of praziquantel.
Comprehensive spectrum of activity against most canine and feline cestodes.
Droncit is the most tried and trusted dewormer to eliminate tapeworms in cats and dogs.
Convenience and Compliance
- Single-dose formula can help eliminate owner compliance problems.
- Choice of convenient tablets or injectable solution for both dogs and cats.
- Easy oral administration to dogs, cats, puppies and kittens.
- Tablets may be crumbled and mixed with the feed.
Droncit has a long history of reliable deworming in the veterinary health care field and offers a wide margin of safety. Not intended for use on kittens less than 6 weeks of age. Not intended for use on puppies less than 4 weeks of age. One instance of diarrhea and one of salivation were reported during the field trials in which 135 cats were administered Droncit Feline Cestocide Tablets.
is available in 34mg tablet for Dogs, 23mg tablet for Cats and a 10ml Injectable for both dogs and cats.

domain: pet


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Home > News > Nation
Friday April 20, 2012 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Sunday May 26, 2013 MYT 2:44:27 AM
KUCHING: The newly registered Sarawak Workers Party (SWP) is free to field their candidates in the coming general election, Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud said.
The state Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman, who seemed nonchalant, said the registration of yet another political party was part of the political scene in Sarawak, where the people had embraced democracy.
"One more party coming in, why not? They are free to be there," he told reporters after officiating at the opening of the 50th Multi District Lions Convention here attended by 1,700 delegates from Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and Brunei.
It was reported that the SWP, whose registration was approved two days ago, had yet to decide on its alliance in the coming polls.
Asked to comment on a statement by SWP protem president Dr Ong Lark Sai that the party would be BN-friendly but might consider taking on the BN, especially in the six seats held by Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), Abdul Taib said: "It's up to the rakyat."
Traditionally, Barisan allocates PRS six parliamentary seats, namely Hulu Rajang, Sri Aman, Lubok Antu, Kanowit, Julau and Selangau.
Meanwhile, a local daily quoted PKR vice-chairman See Chee How as saying that the SWP would not pose a serious threat to Barisan, which currently controlled 29 out of the total 31 parliamentary seats in Sarawak.
See, who is Batu Lintang assemblyman, saw the SWP as a ploy to disrupt Pakatan Rakyat's plans for the election, particularly its chances of winning in certain rural and semi-rural constituencies. BERNAMA
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