The state response COVID-19 deepens the exclusion of indigenous and black peoples from a human rights perspective.
The global crisis and the exacerbation of inequality is once again taking its toll on groups that have historically faced conditions of violation of their Human Rights, such as indigenous and black peoples. In the opinion of the Social Forum on External Debt and Development Honduras (FOSDEH), the indicated peoples constitute our cultural wealth and the main source of national identity. Consequently, this pandemic has called on us to express solidarity with indigenous and black peoples, identifying the relevance, with the collaboration of OXFAM International and the Swiss Cooperation for Development (SDC), to investigate and analyze from the perspective of human rights; the perception of respect for intercultural rights in the measures adopted to face the COVID-19 pandemic.
The purpose of this document is to identify the measures that the State of Honduras is implementing to deal with COVID-19, as well as to contrast these measures from an inclusive approach, considering the particularities of indigenous and black peoples. It is also proposed to make reflections that contribute to greater equity in the benefits of protection and control of the current and potential impacts of COVID-19.
This analysis begins with a regional approach taken from the publication “Avoid Ethnocide: Indigenous Peoples and Territorial Rights in Crisis in the Face of COVID-19 in Latin America” which describes the situation of indigenous peoples in the face of COVID-19 and proposes as solutions from the crisis to end exploitation, discrimination and historical inequalities in the provision of public goods, as well as guarantee respect for collective territorial rights and overcome an extractivist model that destroys the health of indigenous peoples and the planet. (Oxfam, 2020).
The regional version describes the incidence of COVID-19 and its main effects in the fiscal, economic and social spheres of Honduras with a georeferenced estimate of the incidence of the pandemic in the territories of indigenous peoples.
With the regional and national context, the measures that the State of Honduras has implemented in response to the health and humanitarian crisis are outlined in a general way. The central body of this analysis is presented with the exposition of the way in which the policies have been implemented and in their absence, the actions of resistance and resilience in the indigenous and black peoples in the face of the coronavirus. At the end of this report, the peak of the pandemic is not experienced, therefore, a series of reflections and recommendations are presented.
