The term Latin America and the Caribbean covers an extensive region, ranging from Mexico and the Bahamas, to Argentina and Chile. The region is home to around 654 million people and covers 21’951’000 km2.
RET has been present in the region since 2004 and is currently implementing projects in Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and Peru. RET was also present in Haiti between 2010 and 2013.
The Latin America and the Caribbean region is affected by multiple migration patterns, where its citizens see migration as the only solution to flee political and economic instabilities. In south-to north migration flows, people are in search of economic opportunities. Another migration pattern originates in northern countries such as El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua and passes through Mexico to find refuge in Belize, Costa Rica or Panama; in addition, a significant south-to-south migration is currently occurring, where crises such as the internal armed conflict in Colombia, or more recently the social and economic crisis in Venezuela, are forcing the population to be displaced internally and externally, and even emigrating back to their country of origins as returnees. Given the internal conflict in Colombia, the violence in the Northern Territories and the Venezuelan economic crisis, RET is expanding its operations in the region both in Central and South America.
RET´s experience in Latin America in the field of human rights include: prevention of violations of human rights for women affected by the armed conflict in Colombia; prevention of the involvement of children and adolescents into armed groups; guaranteeing access to basic human rights for displaced people; enabling the right to education for displaced, refugee and migrants children, adolescents and youth; access and promotion of refugees and migrants rights in host communities; ensuring the right of children and adolescents to education during emergencies and natural disasters; strengthening the response capacity of disabled children and youth in the face of natural disasters; social-education and labour reintegration of youth offenders; development of income generation activities and small microenterprises to facilitate economic rights for vulnerable women heads of household (indigenous, afro- descendants, refugee, migrants, victims of gender-based-violence); prevention of child labour; prevention of bullying and sexual harassment in adolescents and youth; prevention and response to gender-based-violence; amongst other.
RET has a solid commitment to the promotion and respect of human rights, particularly for vulnerable children, adolescents, youth and women. All these initiatives have promoted not only the understanding and fulfillment of rights by concerned groups, but also the strengthening of institutions functions to observe human rights.
Since 2004, RET has directly supported more than 431,000 direct participants in Latin America & the Caribbean, 60% of them are vulnerable women and indirectly benefitted 2 Million participants throughout 167 projects.