Jody Williams backs Garífuna women protesting evictions in Honduras

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams joined a Sept. 14 solidarity call with Garífuna women camped outside Honduras’s Supreme Court, as they protest violent evictions from ancestral land and demand enforcement of Inter-American Court rulings. The case spotlights mounting pressure on Indigenous land defenders and the Honduran government’s failure to carry out binding protections.

Why it matters: - Garífuna communities say the eviction campaign threatens their ancestral land, territorial rights and cultural survival. - The dispute also tests whether Honduras will follow binding rulings from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights protecting Garífuna territory and women leaders. - The crackdown has broader implications for Indigenous land defenders in the region, especially women human rights defenders.

What happened: - Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams joined a solidarity call on Sept. 14, 2026, with Garífuna women human rights defenders in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. - The women are camped in front of the Supreme Court of Justice to protest violent evictions and demand compliance with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. - The call was organized by the Mesoamerican Initiative for Women Human Rights Defenders, or IM-Defensoras.

The details: - The Garífuna are an Afro-Indigenous people who have lived in coastal villages across Honduras for more than two centuries. - Garífuna communities rely on fishing and farming and maintain a culture recognized by UNESCO for language, dance and music. - The Inter-American Court has issued four rulings recognizing Garífuna rights to ancestral lands and calling for protection of their predominantly women leaders. - The Honduran government has not implemented those rulings. - OFRANEH, a leading Garífuna organization, says the government has intensified violent and illegal evictions. - The Public Prosecutor's Office has brought aggravated usurpation charges against five land defenders from OFRANEH. - OFRANEH representatives say co-opted local media outlets have spread a smear campaign equating Garífuna defenders with organized crime. - Amnesty International has condemned that campaign as criminalizing the legitimate exercise of Indigenous rights, in a statement linked here.

Between the lines: - Williams framed the Honduran response as intimidation rather than governance, arguing that the state is targeting the people it should be protecting. - The confrontation reflects a wider pattern in which Indigenous land defense is met with criminal charges, media attacks and forced removals. - Nobel Women's Initiative has backed the Garífuna people since 2009, signaling long-running international solidarity rather than a one-off response.

What's next: - Nobel Women's Initiative is calling on Honduras to stop all evictions of Garífuna communities, drop the charges against OFRANEH defenders and comply with all Inter-American Court judgments. - The group is also urging international governments and multilateral bodies to condition engagement with Honduras on respect for Indigenous territorial rights and the safety of women human rights defenders. - The organization wants international media to keep centering Garífuna women defending their land, communities and lives.

The bottom line: - The Garífuna protest has become a high-profile test of Honduras’s willingness to honor court-ordered land protections and stop criminalizing Indigenous defenders.