María Felicita López
María Felicita López is an indigenous Lenca woman human rights defender who works as the Coordinator of Women's Rights for the Independent Lenca Indigenous Movement of La Paz Honduras (MILPAH) and as a correspondent for the station Radio Progreso in Honduras. Over the years Felicita has led processes in defence of indigenous territories, women's rights, and the natural commons in the face of extractivist projects that seek to impose themselves on the territories without consulting the communities.
Human rights defenders suffer extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment as well as judicial harassment, threats and stigmatisation. Journalists, lawyers, prosecutors, those defending the rights of women, children, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community, indigenous and Afro-Honduran communities, and those working on environmental and land rights issues are particularly at risk.
