Tag Archives: Latin America & The Caribbean

Age, Nationality + Migration
Venezuelan youth and young adults look to emigrate as their country’s economic crisis deepens
  • One in four Venezuelans between the age of 15 and 29 have indicated a desire to leave the country, with 29% hoping to move to the U.S., 18% to Spain, and 9% to Colombia.
  • Skyrocketing inflation has made renting an apartment or buying a car next to impossible.
  • The government has created programs to address the lack of mobility, but skeptics observing the current political situation expect to find better prospects elsewhere.

“Recovery is going to take years, no matter who is governing. At the end all the politicians are alike.”

Read the full story at Fox News Latino.

Age
Brazil’s legislators eye controversial measure to lower the age of criminal majority from 18 to 16
  • The National Congress will vote this month on the legal status change as the country faces sky-high homicide rates, particularly in the state of Ceara, which sees 76.8 per 100,000 people murdered.
  • In Ceara (whose capital, Fortaleza, has been named the eighth most violent city in the world), adolescents commit 31% of violent crimes.
  • Under current law, Brazilian minors face a maximum three-year detention at “educational centers” for rehabilitation, which President Dilma Rousseff’s government would like to increase to 10 years rather than lower the age of majority.

“The solution is not to send them to adult prison. … This will give them a certificate in crime.”

More on this Washington Post story at the Guardian.

(Image Credit: Aurora Photos/Alamy, via the Guardian)

Age, Nationality + Migration
Mexico drops burdensome requirements for children coming from abroad attempting to enroll in schools
  • The Education Department announced that migrant students will no longer have to provide government-certified, translated transcripts from their original schools in order to enroll officially.
  • Previously, families faced costs that climbed into the hundreds of dollars in order to obtain apostilles and government-approved translations.
  • According to one NGO, there are an estimated 307,000 foreign-born students studying in Mexican schools, with the population of Mexico-born returning migrant children potentially as large or larger.

“Our task is to guarantee equal access to educational services … for migrants, who are an extremely vulnerable sector of the population. … Our goal is to make sure that access, retention and promotion in the educational system is based only on children’s academic performance.”

Read the full story at Fox News Latino.

(Image Credit: Getty Images, via Fox News)

Age, Ideology + Affiliation
Venezuelan students join jailed opposition leader in partial hunger strike
  • Leopoldo Lopez’s protest against the detention of opposition activists and for the announcement of a date for parliamentary elections began four weeks ago.
  • Students and other activists have begun their hunger strikes in public places to call attention to the increasing dismantlement of civil liberties and the worsening economic situation under President Nicolas Maduro.
  • The protests follow last year’s much larger demonstrations involving thousands of youth in public sit-ins.

“We want Venezuelans to understand there are young people ready to give their lives for liberty, democracy and sovereignty.”

Read the full story at Reuters.

(Image Credit: Jorge Dan Lopez/Reuters)

Nationality + Migration
Conflict has displaced 6 million Colombians, second-highest number in the world
  • Colombia’s half-decade of conflict has created ongoing waves of displacement, including 137,000 in 2014, according to the U.N.
  • Beyond the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), new guerilla groups and gangs have sprung up, deterring peace and security.
  • The top recipients of refugees in the Americas are the U.S., Venezuela, and Ecuador.

“We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement, as well as the response required, is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before. … It is terrifying that on the one hand there is more and more impunity for those starting conflicts, and on the other there is seeming utter inability of the international community to work together to stop wars and build and preserve peace.”

Read the full story at the Miami Herald.
(Image Credit: AP, via the Miami Herald)
Nationality + Migration
Mexico surpasses U.S. in number of Central Americans deported
  • Mexico detained 92,889 Central Americans versus the U.S.’s 70,226 “other than Mexican” migrants between October 2014 and April 2015, a dramatic change from the previous year.
  • Mexico’s new Southern Border Program has boosted federal police presence at its southern border and expedited the deportation process, leaving migrants in detention only long enough to have their nationality verified.
  • Human rights monitors are concerned by detention and processing methods, effect on smuggling, and lack of transparency about the U.S.’s involvement.

“What we have heard continuously in the past year is that migrants are being so rapidly deported that even some that might have wanted to request some type of protection, or who would have been eligible for some type of humanitarian visa because they had been victims of crime in Mexico, haven’t had that opportunity.”

Read the full Associated Press story at U.S. News & World Report.

(Image Credit: via U.S. News & World Report)

Religion + Belief
Recent attack on Candomblé followers fuels fears of religious intolerance amongst Brazil’s growing evangelical population
  • An 11-year-old and her family and friends, followers of the Candomblé religion, were attacked by a group of evangelicals while returning from temple.
  • The incident is one of a string of incidents in recent years involving abuse, beatings, forced evictions, and anti-Candomblé rhetoric.
  • Monitors have observed evangelical preachers espousing anti-Candomblé rhetoric to fortify their congregations, which have grown in share to 22% of the population from just 9% two-and-a-half decades ago.

“They want to make people ashamed to practise Candomblé, so they feel they have to turn to the church. …But how can you be a Christian with such hate in your heart?”

More on this story at The Guardian.

(Image Credit: Douglas Engle/AP, via The Guardian)

Nationality + Migration
As registration of Haitians in the Dominican Republic falls short of population numbers, the country looks to move forward with controversial deportations
  • A little under half of the more than 500,000 migrant workers in the Dominican Republic have begun the documentation process with the Wednesday deadline looming, leaving the Haitian community, which comprises 90% of migrant workers, vulnerable to deportation.
  • The situation comes as a result of the strict legal measures restricting citizenship and immigration that began with the stripping of the citizenship of Dominicans born to Haitian immigrants after 1929.
  • Immigrants who have submitted themselves for registration will have 45 more days to complete the process, while the rest will be subject to deportations that the law’s opposers say can only result from community targeting and racial profiling.

“The signals are clear. …The Dominican government is setting up logistics, placing vehicles and personnel to start the process of repatriation.”

More on this story at The New York Times.

(Image Credit: Tatiana Fernandez/Associated Press, via The New York Times)

Age
Nicaragua faces growing crisis as teens commit suicide at rates twice that of the rest of Latin America
  • 23.7 per 100,000 teens commit suicide in the country, keeping school authorities on constant alert for signs of depression and suicide ideation.
  • Mental health services are limited as 75% of Nicaraguans lack access to them and patients admitted after having attempted suicide cannot be forced to remain under observation without their consent.
  • Researchers and medical practitioners speculate on a number of potential causes, including broken homes, natural disasters, and post-conflict psychological effects.

“In my generation, there was ambition and heroism. … Now, there is only lack of opportunity, loss of hope, and a sensation of impotence. They see no other way.”

More on this story at GlobalPost.

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity
Chile toughens measures against racism, discrimination, and violence amongst fans at association football matches
  • The government approved sanctions including increased fines and jail time for those engaging in racist, xenophobic, or discriminatory behavior, including the football clubs themselves.
  • The law’s scope also includes training sessions, the movement or transportation of fans, and public celebrations.
  • The crackdown has been issued as an attempt to curb football violence as the Copa America tournament begins, hosted this year in Santiago.

“We want to make sure that fans and families can enjoy the game safely and in pleasant conditions. … We will do all that we can to put an end to violence and give the sport the feeling of a community celebration.”

More on this story at BBC.

(Image Credit: Reuters, via BBC)

Sexual + Gender Minorities
Colombia adds itself to the list of countries eliminating medical examination requirements for legal gender identity recognition
  • The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior effected the change last Friday, removing the physical and psychiatric
  • Individuals now only need to submit their civil registry form, a copy of their ID card, and a sworn declaration to a notary public to register their identity, after which point the notary will have five days to complete the registration.
  • Subsequent changes to gender identity can only be made after a decade and can only be made twice in one’s lifetime.

“Judges used to order bodily inspections to determine if people had physically changed their sex, or demanded a psychiatric exam to know if the applicant had gender dysphoria. … Both exams were profoundly invasive of privacy rights and were rooted in unacceptable prejudice. The construction of sexual and gender identity is an issue that doesn’t depend on biology.”

More on this story at Americas Quarterly.

Sexual + Gender Minorities
Mexico’s Supreme Court paves way for nationwide marriage equality, though battles remain
  • Being the fifth of its kind from the Court, the ruling last Wednesday on a case from the state of Colima has crossed the threshold necessary for it to be considered “generic jurisprudence,” or binding on all national judges.
  • While most of Mexico’s 31 states have seen rulings in favor of same-sex marriage, they have typically been applied only to the plaintiff couples.
  • However, the ruling only applies to judges, so were registrars to refuse to issue a marriage license to same-sex couples, the couples would have to sue in order to gain the license and federal judges would have to rule five times in order to nullify local marriage code fully.

“The law of whatever federal entity that, on the one hand, considers the goal of marriage is procreation and/or defines marriage as celebrating the union of a man and a woman is unconstitutional.”

More on this story at BuzzFeed.

(Image Credit: Justine Zwiebel for BuzzFeed News with research assistance from Rex Wockner)

Religion + Belief
A Brazilian TV network agrees to broadcast religious freedom PSA following host’s anti-atheist comments.
  • Federal prosecutors took action after the incident in 2010, when host Jose Luiz Datena made the disparaging remarks suggesting atheists are more likely to commit crimes.
  • The Rede Bandeirantes network will run the piece on religious freedom 72 times until November.
  • Brazil’s constitution guarantees religious freedoms (including, in this case, freedom from religion), and intolerant speech can lead to fines or prison sentences for violators.

More on this story at BBC.

(Image Credit: BBC)

Gender

News

Colombia passes new hate crime law building in tougher punishments for gender-based violence against women.
  • The bill–passed with 104-3 in favor–targets violence of a physical, psychological, or sexual nature.
  • Those convicted could now face up to 50 years in jail.
  • The bill was named for Rosa Elvira Cely, a woman whose brutal attack, rape, and murder in a Bogota park spurred mass protests in 2012.

Presidential adviser for women’s equality Martha Ordonez said that in Colombia a woman was the victim of a violent act on average every 13 minutes, and that every four days one was killed by her partner.

More on this story at BBC.

(Image Credit: Getty Images, via BBC)

Gender
More than 150,000 gathered in Buenos Aires to protest femicide and other violence against women under the campaign #NiUnaMenos.
  • Celebrities, journalists, and politicians joined the massive crowd gathered outside Argentina’s Congress.
  • Readings and storytelling gave voice to the suffering of many women in a country that has seen gender-based violence on the increase over the last decade.
  • Similar demonstrations were held in neighboring Uruguay and Chile.

“Un grito colectivo que no cesó en la plaza y siguió retumbando en las calles…Un grito colectivo que se charlará en las casas y volverá a las redes sociales para que el tema no se apague hasta que el basta sea una realidad.”

Translation: “A collective cry that didn’t cease in the plaza and kept resounding in the streets…A collective cry that will be chatted about in homes and will go back to social media so that the point does not fade until ‘enough’ is a reality.”

More on this story at La Nación (in Spanish).

(Image Credit: La Nación)