Creating a more just society

I've had a nice long break from blogging, and am ready to return in full force! Maybe I wasn't inspired because there wasn't much going on. We're still in the honeymoon phase of our move to Teguc, so I'll try to take advantage of the shiny new veneer on our MCC experience and talk about my new job at the Asociacion para una Sociedad Mas Justa.

Here's the link to the Spanish site.

ASJ is an organization fighting within the Honduran justice system to create a fairer playing field for some of Honduras's most marginalized citizens. The work at ASJ focuses on labor rights, land rights, monitoring the use of public funds, alternative news gathering (www.revistazo.com), and providing low-income people with psychological and legal aid.

For now, I'll talk briefly about land rights and labor rights.

This last week was actually a very big one for ASJ. Two years ago one of their labor rights attorneys, Dionicio Diaz Garcia, was murdered by two hired assasins who worked for a private security company. Dionisio worked to defend the rights of security guards who had suffered labor abuses. A couple of weeks ago the two men were convicted, and last week they were sentenced to 21 years in prison (the maximum is 30). This represented a major victory for ASJ. They aided the prosecution in investigating and compiling a case against the murderers, and advocated internationally for justice to be done. In Honduras, many officials are afraid to convict people, as they are afraid that they themselves might be killed in retaliation. The intellectual author of the crime has yet to be prosecuted. On one hand, this victory sends a message that impunity won't be tolerated. On the other hand, I think ASJ hoped that two men who killed a human rights lawyer who worked for the poor would get the maximum sentence.

ASJ's labor rights work focuses mostly on security guards and cleaning company employees. Both of these types of companies tend to have the worst labor abuse records (failing to pay minimum wage, not giving time off or vacation days, firing people without fair cause) because they often hire people who have very little education. They take advantage of Hondruas's high unemployment rate (I heard that it was 25%) and threaten to fire employees when they demand the rights offered to them under Honduran law. But the owners of these companies tend to be well connected and very rich, earning themselves a certain amount of protection from the authorities and the government. ASJ is going up against some powerful people.

On the land rights front, ASJ is working alongside various community leaders who are trying to get fair titles for their land. The land titling process is messy. Often times various supposed land owners claim ownership of the same parcel, and there are few good surveys and records in many of these old communities. Many neighborhoods started as squatter villages and gradually became more formalized. ASJ helped write a new Honduran law that allows the government to take ownership of a community where land ownership is in dispute, and allow the people living there to pay into an escrow account. Once the courts decide who the owner is, the owner gets the money in the account, and the community members get the titles to their land. In Cofradia, a community near San Pedro Sula, three community leaders have been murdered by assasins hired, most likely, by supposed land owners who don't want what the land to expropriated. ASJ is helping to investigate the killings (despite the fact that the police are ignoring the crimes), and continues to help other community leaders who are receiving threats. They also continue to aid leaders in expropriating the land, though the government has been slow, despite pressure from the World Bank and international NGOs. The fight is long.

Otherwise, ASJ is involved in a host of other activities. The Gideon Centers, located in some of Tegucigalpa's poorest neighborhoods (including Flor del Campo), offers psychological and legal aid for a fee of $.50. This is the only service of this nature I have ever heard of in this country. Legal cases include labor abuses, child support, proof of paternity, spousal abuse, etc. They deal with many of these in a holistic way, tending to not only the legal case but also the person's mental well-being.

The mission of this Christian organization revolves around the idea that people of faith are called to advocate for the rights of the poor and marginalized. In many cases the strong laws in Honduras are not enforced, and uneducated people from poor communities have few advocates, or may not even know what their rights are. We are called to work within the system to change laws, or to enforce existing laws, to ensure that the "least of these" is taken care of. There is danger involved, but Jesus said that Christians would be hated by the world.

It looks as if I will be involved in advocacy in the Cofradia land rights case, and a whole host of communications and public relations activities. I've only been there two weeks. Here is a video that we just posted of a Honduran cleaning woman telling her story. All I did was put in the subtitles in Windows Movie Maker, but at least it is an example of some of the advocacy work we do.

On a lighter note, here is the view of our community out of the porch window.


And Amanda doing the laundry.