MILPAH
WHRD Ana Mirian Romero of MILPAH wins the 2016 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, presented in Dublin.
In 2010, indigenous communities from the department of La Paz, decided to organise themselves in the Movimiento Independiente Indígena Lenca de La Paz- Honduras – MILPAH to defend in a more articulated way their natural assets, especially their mountains, forests and rivers. MILPAH was born in response to the irregular concessions of rivers and territories to mining companies and hydroelectric projects in their lands.
Since then, the Indigenous communities, along with other organizations, have denounced the lack of prior, free and informed consultation as dictated by ILO Convention 169. MILPAH demands that they are properly engaged in the design and implementation of actions that affect their communities and environment.
Human rights defenders suffer extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment as well as judicial harassment, threats and stigmatisation. Since the 2009 military coup, the number of killings, threats and acts of intimidation against campesinos and environmental rights defenders has increased.
