AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

PRESS RELEASE

AI Index: AMR 37/020/2003 (Public)

News Service No: 262

20 November 2003

Honduras: An outstanding debt to children

"The government of Honduras has an outstanding debt to children," stated Amnesty International on the International Day of Children’s Rights.

Since the launch, in February this year, of its report "Zero Tolerance for Impunity: Extrajudicial Executions of Children and Youths since 1998", Amnesty International has received further complaints of human rights violations against children in Honduras.

According to reports from local human rights organizations, almost 500 minors were killed between January and October of this year.

"Although the Honduran government has publicly acknowledged the gravity of the situation and has promoted various initiatives to identify those responsible for these crimes, these projects have suffered from inadequate implementation and the vast majority of deaths thus continue in oblivion," said Amnesty International.

The Special Unit for Investigating the Deaths of Minors (Unidad especial de investigación de muerte de menores) has recently made some progress in its investigations into a small number of cases, some of which were included within the report produced by Amnesty International.

"We consider this to be a small step in the right direction. It is important that this should be decisively continued and that the necessary resources be allocated to this Unit so that the goal of punishing those responsible for these crimes can be achieved," stressed Amnesty International.

The Ministry of the Interior and Justice recently announced the establishment of a National Witness Protection Plan (Plan Nacional de Protección de Testigos) for judicial proceedings. Amnesty International considers this to be a positive move and is awaiting news of the proposal’s scope and the date it will come into effect.

Thousands of the organization’s members from around the world have sent repeated requests and collected thousands of signatures calling on the Honduran authorities to comply with its obligation to prevent human rights violations and to protect victims.

"The government can put off the establishment of adequate mechanisms to protect the rights of Honduran children no longer. It must put an end to the gap between words and actions," concluded Amnesty International.

For a copy of the report: "Zero Tolerance ..for Impunity: Extrajudicial Executions of Children and Youths since 1998", please see: http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engAMR370012003

Public Document

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