The 2009 coup d’état against the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya unleashed a wave of violence against popular movements across Honduras.
Among those most impacted are the LGBTQ communities. The violence is driving members of the community to seek asylum by emigrating from the country as a result of the persecution because of their gender and sexual identities.
“I have to leave immediately from this country,” Jonathan Cruz, a twenty-seven-year-old LGBTQ activist and representative from the Comité de la Diversidad Sexual en Honduras told the Progressive in February 2018. We sat in the food court of a new shopping center in Tegucigalpa. Cruz’s eyes were always alert, watching each person pass by as we talked.
“I am in danger,” he said.
There had been attempts on Cruz’s life before. In 2014 he narrowly survived an attempt on his life.
Cruz had sought to leave Honduras due to the threats against him. He sought asylum in the United States and in Europe, yet he was not able to find the means to leave the country legally.
His situation grew more precarious in the months after we met. He survived another attempt on his life in September, but on November 8, Cruz was killed.
Cruz, like many in the Honduran LGBTQ community, had faced intimidation and violence on the basis of his identity.
The post-coup government, led by the far rightwing Partido Nacional, began a campaign of violence against activists, journalists, students, and members of the LGBTQ community. And this violence has intensified since the election of Juan Orlando Hernández in 2013.
Members of the community face continued discrimination, intimidation, attacks, and even death. Since the coup, over 250 members of the LGBTQ community have been killed because of their identities. Yet this number is probably far higher than reported.
“Many of the cases are what we consider to be hate crimes,” Sandra Zambrano, the director of Asociación por una Vida Mejor (APUVIMEH) said in an interview. “Few of these cases go to the courts. The majority of cases remain in impunity.”
The Inter-American Human Rights Commission has spoken out against the violence and the continued human rights violations, and all too often these crimes are committed with freedom from liability.
“I am in danger.”
As violence and persecution have increased, so too has the number of LGBTQ people and activists that have sought to flee their homes. As Victor Clark-Alfaro, an immigration expert at San Diego State University, points out to The New York Times, in recent years these numbers of LGBTQ people migrating from Guatemala, EL Salvador and Honduras have greatly increased.
“[Members of the community] have suffered in silence, and are often displaced from their homes and forced to go from town to town, or department to department, and eventually from the country because they see there is no response from the government,” Zambrano told me.
In Honduras, the government justifies the violence against the LGBTQ community by invoking article 142.3 of the Law of Police and Social Coexistence, which protect “good manners and public morals.” Yet as the Inter-American Human Rights Commission points out, the policy is actually used to discriminate against vulnerable communities.
Members of the LGBTQ community face further persecution and violence in route through Mexico to the United States border. They also face violence if captured along the border.
According to analysis from the Center for American Progress, based on documents from ICE obtained by Rep. Kathleen Rice, Democrat of New York, LGBTQ immigrants are ninety-seven times more likely to suffer from sexual assault and sexual violence while incarcerated by ICE. This violence especially affects transgender migrants.
This type of treatment has turned deadly.
In May 2018, Roxana Hernández, a transgender woman from Honduras, died while in ICE custody after being captured in New Mexico and placed in the “ice box,” the ICE detention facility known for freezing temperatures, following the arrival of the caravan of Central American migrants. She was one of a number of transgender women that were fleeing the violence against the LGBTQ communities in Central America.
The autopsy report, which was released on November 26, stated that Hernández died of untreated dehydration. The report also exposed Hernández had been beaten prior to her death.
Despite these instances, the north still looms as the greatest means to escape violence in Central America. For many, the possibility of violence against them for their identities at home greatly outweighs the possibility of violence once in the United States.
Hundreds of members of the community joined the caravans of migrants and asylum seekers that set out in October 2018. Dozens of members of the community, especially transgender women, set out ahead of the caravan to arrive to the border in Tijuana to begin to the process for asylum. The group made the decision to go ahead of the caravan due to violence against them in the main caravan.
One of those members of the community that successfully sought a safer life in the United States ahead of the caravan is Ariel Owen (a pseudonym he asked to be used to protect his identity), a twenty-three-year-old human rights activist and member of the LGBTQ community from Tegucigalpa, Honduras
“After the coup d'etat the murders of members of the LGBTQ community have greatly increased . . .”
“The situation of the LGBTQ community in Honduras is very difficult,” Owen told The Progressive. “Members of the community do not have decent access to education or health care in the same way as others. And after the coup d'etat the murders of members of the LGBTQ community have greatly increased, and to date these crimes continue to go unpunished. For young human rights defenders like me, we are currently at great risk in my country for the repression of discrimination against society and the state."
Owen faced intense violence for his activism and because of his identity.
On April 29, 2017, individuals dressed in the uniforms of the Police Investigations Directorate, an investigative unit formed by Juan Orlando Hernandez in 2015, entered Owen’s home in Tegucigalpa and massacred his family. Owen narrowly escaped with his life, and took refuge in the home of his grandmother.
Owen worked with Zambrano to to file a lawsuit, but little came of it. Shortly after he set out for the United States, where he’s begun the process of seeking asylum. His case will go before the courts in April 2019.
“I had to leave my country to protect my life,” Owen said.