March 12, 2024
ASJ’ Work Building a Safe Home
Brave Christians working for justice in Honduras.
Tackling extortion in Honduras is not an easy job. Our brave team has undertaken this task because we have seen change happen in the past, and we believe change is possible now. In an article for CRC’s Do Justice blog, ASJ-Honduras’ Director of Research, Andreas Daugaard, wrote:
“ASJ had long been deeply concerned with how widespread extortion had become and the almost complete impunity for those involved. Our first response was to do research; we read all the literature on the subject we could encounter, interviewed 47 people, including victims, police, and judges, and we even went inside a maximum-security prison to talk to gang-members convicted for extortion. We analyzed 149 legal cases and conducted a national survey, all to understand this awful crime of extortion and comprehend what the authorities were doing about it.
We found out extortion was an even bigger problem than we thought. We estimate that 206,623 Honduran families (9 percent of the population) were paying 737 million dollars to extortionists in 2020. We also discovered that extortion was mutating.”
With groundbreaking, strong research, ASJ is leading the way in building a safer Honduras. Stories like the one you will read here are what motivate us to push forward. Mario is our friend and neighbor who has shown us what it means to have the courage to build a safe home.
ASJ’s courageous work in speaking up against extortion created ripples throughout Honduras. After we published our research, the general public and the government reacted in visible ways. In his article, Andreas tells us about the reactions:
“The Honduran Business Council released a public statement that extortion had “gotten out of hand,” the transportation sector decided to make a manifestation on the day of our report launch in which they jammed traffic all around the capitol by blocking streets with their vehicles. We launched our report, and it immediately went viral: the news programs made it the top story and the next day, our report was on the covers of all major newspapers. We were invited to the most-watched TV debate program in Honduras and were given 90 minutes to present our findings and recommendations.
The government pushed back heavily. The police director said we were lying - that we were exaggerating the scope of the problem. Yet two days later, the highest levels of government responded. The president, Xiomara Castro, called for a press conference to launch the new national anti-extortion strategy. And when we saw a copy, we got excited: it seemed to implement almost identically the things we had recommended and presented to the police. Some phrases even seemed to be copy-pasted from our report.
The report made it around the world with citations in newspapers from Spain, Japan, and in the New York Times. Congress called the police director to a hearing to be held accountable. However, in the following four months, the situation did not seem to be improving. Honduras has been engulfed by a series of events that have removed focus from the declared “war against extortion.” Yet, Hondurans remain under a state of emergency while victims of extortion are unprotected."
You can see we have brought you into a story that is still ongoing. Our work is not done yet. As you read this issue of Justicia, Mario and his brother continue to run their business in Nueva Suyapa, and Andreas continues to lead the ASJ-Honduras Research Team investigating difficult topics. We will keep monitoring the evolution of the anti-extortion plan that President Xiomara Castro presented after the release of our initial research. We continue to dream, pray, sing, and work to build a safe home, and we want to leave you with words from Andreas’ article:
“In the end, we must focus on doing our part: identifying the needs of the vulnerable, working diligently to seek justice, and speak the truth before the people with the power to make change. What they choose to do with the truth is largely out of our hands. All we can do is pray for God to soften their hearts and bring justice. At ASJ we will continue to research and bravely speak up but also pray and fight for a more just Honduras. We hope you will join us.”
