WOLA: Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas

Protecting Human Rights

(AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

In Mexico, human rights violations are widespread and rarely punished. Enforced and other disappearances continue to victimize tens of thousands of families; security forces implicated in extrajudicial executions lack adequate accountability; torture, ill-treatment, and arbitrary imprisonment are daily realities; and human rights defenders, especially community defenders working to protect their land and the environment, face attacks and murder. These serious violations disproportionately impact sectors of society who already face structural and often intersecting forms of discrimination.

WOLA works with Mexican human rights organizations to seek concrete actions and institutional reforms to reduce and punish serious human rights violations and to protect human rights defenders. We advocate for justice in individual cases and promote improved human rights cooperation and policies aimed at ensuring that such cases no longer occur.