[O]ur foundation is naming OFRANEH (Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña / Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras), as recipient of the 2023 Human Rights and Business Award... The foundation’s board members... said...: “We are very pleased that the 2023 award goes to OFRANEH, an exceptional organization of courageous human rights defenders who have been working for decades, at great risk to themselves, to defend the rights of the Garífuna people in Honduras.”

... OFRANEH works at all levels – local, national, regional and international – to defend the rights and ancestral lands of the Garífuna people... In 2003 OFRANEH petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights... to present three of the Garífuna’s cases to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Their complaints detailed years of human rights abuses by the Honduran state and corporate actors. The Garífuna stated that they had not provided “free, prior, and informed consent”... before development projects took place. In 2015 the Inter-American Court...

• found the Honduran state responsible for violating the Garífuna’s collective ownership rights and not affording them due judicial protections;
• affirmed the importance of free, prior, and informed consent; and
• ordered reparations including a public statement of responsibility, collective land ownership titles, and future protections for ancestral lands.

Despite those rulings... OFRANEH reports that since 2014 the pressure on the Garífuna people and their territory has increased dramatically.

... In Vallecito, Colón, OFRANEH has organized the largest food sovereignty program in Honduras... OFRANEH also has promoted nine Ancestral Health Houses to provide comprehensive health for the communities, “based on the ancestral knowledge, practices and knowledge related to the well-being of the body, the mind, the environment and the spiritual base of the members of the Garífuna communities.”... OFRANEH has received other awards for its outstanding work.

... Following is a list of all the organizations nominated for the 2023 Human Rights and Business Award by members of the foundation’s Advisory Network. Each of these is doing important work deserving international recognition.

• Corporacion Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo – CAJAR (Colombia)
• Fuerza de Mujeres Wayuu (Colombia)
• Observatorio Ciudadano (Chile)
• Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña – OFRANEH (Honduras) – AWARD RECIPIENT
• Pytyvohára Sauce Platform - PSP (Paraguay)
• R3D - Red en defensa de los derechos digitales (Mexico)

OFRANEH is the sixth recipient of the annual award. The previous winners:

• 2022: Oil Workers’ Rights Protection Organization – OWRPO (Azerbaijan)
• 2021: AFREWATCH (Democratic Republic of Congo)
• 2020: Migrant Workers Rights Network (MWRN) (Thailand)
• 2019: Al-Haq (Palestine)
• 2018: Justiça nos Trilhos (Brazil)