Meet the human rights activist creating a safe space for trans sex workers in Honduras • GCN

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Founded in 2008, Muñecas de Arcoíris (Rainbow Dolls) is a collective of trans women that works on advocating and creating a safe space for trans sex workers in Honduras. For their tireless work with the local trans community, the collective recently received the 2024 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk in the Americas.

In May, Front Line Defenders published its yearly report on the statistics on risks and threats to human rights defenders around the world, showing a sharp increase in the number of attacks against LGBTQ+ activists. The report also showed that at least 300 activists were killed in 28 countries in 2023, bringing the total to over 3,000 human rights defenders murdered in the last decade.

At a ceremony that took place on May 31 in Trinity College Dublin, five activists from different parts of the world received the 2024 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk for their work. Jennifer Cordova was one of the awardees, receiving the accolade on behalf of Muñecas de Arcoíris at the ceremony.

Speaking about the situation for the community in Honduras, Jennifer Cordova told GCN about the high levels of violence that LGBTQ+ people face.

“Since 2022, the rates of violence against LGBTQ+ people have increased year after year,” she said. “In 2023, there were over 50 deaths of LGBTQ+ people and this year up until now we’ve had seven deaths already, none of which has been investigated by the State or the authorities.”

In addition to the high levels of violence, the LGBTQ+ community in Honduras faces a severe lack of support and protection. Although the country has anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBTQ+ individuals, the community faces difficulties in finding jobs and housing, and there are very low rates of accessibility to loans or lending spaces for queer people.

Moreover, there is no system through which trans people can change their legal gender and same-sex relationships are not in any way recognised under the law.

“We don’t have any support. In turn, there’s a lot of unemployment, and the government is actively persecuting LGBTQ+ people,” Cordova said.

“That’s what happens in the country and it drives a lot of LGBTQ+ people to flee, to leave the country. And because of being displaced, they suffer even more because they don’t have access to any kind of resources,” the activist continued.

The situation is even more dire for the transgender community.

“For trans people, Honduras is a very violent country,” Cordova said. “The lifespan for trans women in Honduras is around 35 years.”

The activist explained how trans people face this climate of hate from a very early age in schools, where misgendering and deadnaming are common practices even from authority figures, such as teachers. “Because of the hatred, bullying is very high in the schools. So there’s lots of dropouts,” she said.

Dropping out of school at an early age leads to a lack of education that makes finding employment even more difficult. “There isn’t really access for LGBTQ+ people to dignified jobs,” Cordova said. “Because of this, sex work has been on the rise in the trans community. Because it’s really the only way that they can support their families and themselves.”

“And that’s one of the reasons that the levels of violence have been on the rise. Because trans women who are working on the streets are in situations of danger, and they’re often abused even by the police and the military.”

It was to provide protection and a safe space to trans women that the collective Muñecas de Arcoíris was formed. Founded in 2008 in the city of Tegucigalpa and Comayagüela in Honduras, the collective works under the LGTBI+ Arcoíris Association of Honduras.

With the support of their umbrella organisation, members of the collective received training on the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the country and started documenting human rights violations perpetrated against trans women. Most of the members of the collective are sex workers, informal workers, stylists, and housekeepers, among others.

“Our leadership has over 35 trans women,” Cordova explained. “We were born out of this idea of protecting human rights, and we deal with any complaints that come to us in terms of judicial process violations or violations on the streets that trans women are facing.

“We also have a shelter that helps trans sex workers or women who have faced trouble on the streets. So that’s a little bit of the scenario,” the activist explained. She also spoke about how the collective is working on improving legislation protecting trans people in Honduras, as well as access to healthcare.

“We’ve worked on the issue of voting rights for trans women and to ensure that they have suffrage and that they can go out and feel they can vote without fear,” she said. Moreover, the collective has been campaigning for the introduction of legislation for the legal recognition of gender, also forming a committee dedicated to the task. “But we’ve noticed that there’s a lack of political will.”

Furthermore, the collective is working beyond Honduras, trying to form international alliances with other organisations and a network of relationships outside the country’s borders. “We’ve also gone to conferences throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. And we’ve participated in events in the Organisation of American States.”

When asked what it meant for them to receive the 2024 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders, Cordova said: “We are very excited about this as a collective of trans women. It’s the first time we really feel represented and respected for the work that we do.

“This will help us with visibility so that the work that we do will be better known in the country. The fact that an international organisation stands by the work that we do is really important.”

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