Honduras' Most Important Feminist Leader Passes Away

Honduran human rights defender and prominent feminist Gladys Lanza Ochoa passed away at the age of 74 on Wednesday, Sept. 20, after suffering from health problems that have yet to be detailed. Coordinator of the organization "Women for Peace Visitacion Padilla" which she founded on Jan. 25, 1984, at the time of her passing she was fighting against her imprisonment for the simple act of defending the rights of women in the country.

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In January 2015, Gladys Lanza was controversially convicted of "defamation" against Juan Carlos Reyes Flores, former Director of the Urban and Rural Development Foundation (FUNDEVI). Lanza had defended Lesbia Pacheco, who in 2011 reported that Flores was sexually harassing her and requested help from the human rights defenders organization. At first, the court ruled in favor of Pacheco but in a strange turn of events, the decision was overturned following an appeal. The FUNDEVI director then opened up a case against Lanza, and in a strange turn of events, she was condemned in less than a year and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment.

For more than 30 years Gladys Lanza had defended the rights of women and had never been accused of defamation. The cases were always presented by the victims—Lanza's organization simply offered support. The difference this time around however was that Reyes Flores is the husband of Gabriela Nuñez, a current lawmaker and leader of the right-wing Liberal Party. Putting their differences aside, the Honduran feminist movement rallied behind Lanza as they pointed to political persecution. In the end, Lanza was able to avoid going to prison but was forced to leave her position as Coordinator of Visitacion Padilla, the very organization she founded.

Gladys Lanza with the late Berta Caceres | Source: teleSUR

Along with Lanza more than 5,000 Honduran activists have been criminalized since the 2009 coup d’état against the left-wing President Manuel Zelaya. Charges of defamation, invasion of private property, disobedience and sedition are used to control feminists, campesinos, journalists, workers, lawyers, students and anybody else that raises its voice against the Honduran state.

For local and national media, Lanza is now presented as an example for the social movements, but they seem to have forgetten how she was falsely accused by a justice system that promotes impunity and only works efficiently when its objective is political persecution and control.

A Life of Activism

Visitacion Padilla was originally created to denounce and defend persecuted women who had been jailed and tortured for political reasons during the Cold War years in Central America.

Before becoming a human rights activist, Gladys Lanza was President of the Workers Union of the National Energy Company and one of the country's most prominent labor organizers. She was also a coordinator for the Honduras Communist Party in the 1980's and was long profiled by the Honduran state as an enemy. In 1984, she was detained and tortured but her life was spared: the rest of her life, she dedicated to defending human rights and in particular the rights of women.

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In 1991 Lanza's house was attacked by paramilitary forces but she continued her struggle. After structural reforms in the 1990s promoted by the United States, the IMF and World Bank, she became one of the country's strongest critics of neoliberalism, also becoming an increasingly important figure in the fight for equal political participation and the rights of hundreds of women willing to denounce abuses in a justice system that all-too-often took the side of men and the powerful.

After the 2009 coup, she helped found the National Popular Resistance Front which was created in opposition to the new regime and the militarization of the Central American country.

Honduras has lost one of its most important political and social figures, a woman who was criminalized by the state and a reminder of the enduring struggle of women and human rights defenders in a country where women and other groups face continuous violence and discrimination. Hers is an example that will live on and inspire all Hondurans involved in the fight for a better society.