Violent evictions of peasant farmers and threats to human rights defenders over land issues were reported. There were calls for greater efforts to protect children from abuse. Prisons remained overcrowded and violent.

Background

There were renewed calls for the reintroduction of the death penalty after the discovery in February of the body of Cecilia Cubas, daughter of a former President. She had been kidnapped in September 2004.

More than 40 per cent of the rural population was reported to live in poverty. There were frequent protests over land reform and other socio-economic issues.

Land issues

Conflicts over land rights led to excessive use of force by the authorities. Human rights defenders working to promote peasants' rights were harassed and threatened.

  • Two people were shot dead and at least five injured during a violent eviction in Tekojoja, Vaqueria, Caaguazu Department, on 24 June. According to reports, armed civilians shot unarmed bystanders while police destroyed crops, burned down homes and beat and detained dozens of peasant families, including children. The detained peasant farmers were subsequently released and a judicial investigation was opened into the incident.
  • Two Roman Catholic nuns – Juana Antonia Barua and Clara Nimia Insaurralde – and a community leader, José Bordón, received death threats in August. The threats were apparently linked to their work in Naranjito, San Pedro Department, promoting peasant farmers' rights and environmental concerns.

In June the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of the Yakye Axa indigenous community, which had been expelled from its ancestral lands. The Court ordered the Paraguayan state to demarcate the ancestral territory of the Yakye Axa community and hand it back within three years.

Abuses against children

The UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, who had visited Paraguay in 2004, called for more intensive efforts to protect children, including stronger legislation, action against police corruption, cross-border co-operation, the segregation of young people from adults in prisons, programmes to reduce poverty and social exclusion, and the eradication of the practice of using children to perform domestic tasks in exchange for board, lodging or a basic education. In the area near the border with Brazil and Argentina the government set up a new office to combat the sexual exploitation of children, including sex trafficking.

  • The case of a servant girl who had reportedly been physically and sexually abused by her employer from the age of 12 was one of the few cases of child abuse to reach the courts. However, although legal complaints were filed in 2002, no judge had been appointed to hear the case by the end of 2005 .

Prison conditions and ill-treatment

Reports indicated that prisons were grossly overcrowded, with inadequate sanitation, medical facilities and education and rehabilitation activities. There were reports that inmates, including juveniles, were ill-treated.

  • In May, 30 juveniles held in the regional penitentiary of Ciudad del Este began a hunger strike in protest at an alleged assault by a prison guard on a 17-year-old inmate. After police restored order, a forensic doctor reported that two juveniles had sustained injuries.

UN Human Rights Committee

In October the UN Human Rights Committee made a number of recommendations including that the authorities take appropriate measures to combat domestic violence and ensure that those responsible are brought to trial and receive an appropriate punishment. It also called for the conscription of child soldiers to be eradicated and for all complaints of ill-treatment and deaths of conscripts to be investigated and compensation awarded to the victims.

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