Xiomara Castro faces uphill battle in Honduras women’s rights charge

A 2015 piece on news website El Mundo described Honduras as “hell for women,” amid the country’s apparently never-ending cycle of domestic and gender-based violence. Murders of women increased by over 263 percent between 2005 and 2013, while only one out of nine reported crimes were actually investigated and solved. Seven years on, the violence remains, but there is new-found hope of tackling the problem. 

For the first time in the country’s history, Honduras is led by a woman president. Taking office earlier this year, left-leaning Xiomara Castro promised Hondurans a less violent nation, attacking poverty, unemployment, and inequality as the cornerstones of domestic and gender-based violence.

She says that socioeconomic issues and violence are indistinguishable and must be confronted simultaneously. Ms. Castro boasted that “the political agenda of women and feminists will be [her] priority, hoping to empower women in the domestic economy. Indeed, the wave of unemployment caused by the Covid pandemic disproportionately affected Honduran women.

Mi compromiso por la defensa de los Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres de Honduras. La agenda política de mujeres y feministas será mi prioridad. No...