Arbitrary detention and unfair trials
In several countries across the Americas, people were arbitrarily imprisoned for political reasons in 2025. These were primarily individuals considered critical of the government, who were generally tried without fair trial.
In Cuba, arbitrary arrests were used to suppress alleged government critics. While at least 211 political prisoners were released in January 2025, they were subject to unlawful and opaquely justified parole conditions. In some cases, parole was revoked because they continued their political activism and human rights advocacy.
In El Salvador, too, people were arbitrarily detained: at the end of 2025, more than 90,000 people were imprisoned without sufficient evidence. Parliament passed a legal reform that disproportionately extended the duration of pretrial detention and allowed multiple defendants to be tried in a single trial, instead of individually examining each person’s criminal responsibility. This opened the floodgates to mass trials.
In Nicaragua, local organizations documented at least 60 cases of politically motivated arbitrary detentions.
In Venezuela, too, people were arbitrarily detained for political reasons. At the end of the year, according to civil society organizations, at least 806 people were still imprisoned for political reasons. The accused were assigned court-appointed lawyers who did not provide effective representation, were not informed of the charges against them, and were tried in courts that were not independent.
In Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Venezuela and the USA, the independence of the judiciary has been further eroded.
The authorities must stop abusing the justice system to suppress dissenting opinions. They must take all necessary measures to prevent arbitrary detention and guarantee the right to a fair trial.
Rights of prisoners
In many countries, prisoners were subjected to inhumane prison conditions. Prison overcrowding was a frequent and structural problem.
In Bolivia, the Ombudsman’s Office for Human Rights drew attention to extreme prison overcrowding: more than 33,000 people were incarcerated in a system designed for only about 16,000. In Ecuador and El Salvador, detainees continued to be held in overcrowded prisons without adequate food and medical care. Violent deaths also occurred in detention facilities. In Haiti, juvenile detention centers were overcrowded, and in at least one facility, children were housed with adults. Prison conditions in Uruguay continued to deteriorate, with people being held in unsanitary and overcrowded cells.
Inmates and human rights activists from countries such as Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela and the USA reported torture in detention facilities.
In El Salvador, detainees were tortured and abused by prison staff through beatings, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, and collective punishment. Between March 2022, when the state of emergency was declared, and December 2025, approximately 470 deaths in state custody were documented.
In Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, people considered critical of the government were at particularly high risk of torture and other ill-treatment. Nicaragua repealed Article 36 of its constitution, which contained an explicit prohibition of torture.
States must guarantee the rights and dignity of prisoners.
Disappearance
Enforced disappearances remained commonplace across the Americas and largely went unpunished. In some countries, enforced disappearances were clearly linked to the suppression of dissent, while in others, the practice was connected to the enforcement of security measures.
In Cuba, enforced disappearances were used as a method to suppress human rights defenders, activists, artists, and journalists. In Nicaragua, the detention conditions of several people imprisoned for political reasons amounted to enforced disappearances, as their whereabouts were concealed and they were denied visits. The practice of enforced disappearances also remained common in Venezuela. Those affected were typically first arbitrarily detained by security forces, who then withheld information, denied the detention of the individuals, and deliberately concealed their fate and whereabouts.
In Ecuador, the Attorney General’s Office launched an investigation in 2025 into the possible enforced disappearance of 43 people during security operations by the armed forces in 2024. In El Salvador, hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers who were unlawfully deported from the United States in March 2025 were victims of enforced disappearance. They were detained in the notorious CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento Contra el Terrorismo) detention center and held incommunicado. Because they were deprived of the protection of the law, this constituted enforced disappearance under international standards.
In Colombia, the International Committee of the Red Cross documented a total of 136 new cases of enforced disappearances related to the armed conflict between January and May 2025, including 26 children and adolescents.
In view of the extremely high number of enforced disappearances in Mexico, the UN Committee against Enforced Disappearances announced in April 2025 that it would, for the first time, activate the procedure under Article 34 of the International Convention against Enforced Disappearances to determine whether enforced disappearances are systematic and widespread in Mexico.
States must completely abolish the practice of enforced disappearances and also take all necessary measures to prevent non-state actors from abducting people.
Right to truth, justice and reparations
Several court rulings have been handed down in cases of serious human rights violations. In Chile, three members of the Carabineros were convicted for attacking Moisés Ordenes during a peaceful demonstration in 2019. In Colombia, the Special Court for Peace handed down its first verdicts for war crimes and crimes against humanity. In Mexico, a civilian court sentenced four members of the military to 40 years in prison for the extrajudicial killing of five young people in 2023. In Uruguay, 15 convictions were handed down against members of the military and police for crimes against humanity committed under the military government (1973–1985).
In Argentina, a trial in absentia was authorized for ten defendants accused of the 1994 bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) community center in Buenos Aires. In Guatemala, a suspect who had been on the run for years was arrested and charged with his alleged involvement in the 1998 assassination of Archbishop Juan José Gerardi. In Honduras, a court ruled that three men accused of the 2024 murder of environmental activist Juan López must stand trial.
However, there were also setbacks in 2025. In Bolivia, the proceedings against police and military personnel in connection with several massacres in 2019 were dismissed. In Chile, the public prosecutor’s office decided not to pursue 1,509 cases of human rights violations committed during the social unrest in 2019. In Colombia, military courts and regular criminal courts continued to dispute who had jurisdiction over proceedings concerning potential human rights violations and international crimes committed by military and police forces. In Guatemala, a court ruling violated international human rights standards by granting house arrest to a member of the military who had been convicted of serious human rights violations in the case of activist Molina Theissen. In Peru, an amnesty law was passed granting immunity to all members of the armed forces, the national police, and self-defense groups for serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed between 1980 and 2000.
The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) investigations against Venezuela made little progress, and the ICC Prosecutor’s Office decided in December to close its offices in Caracas.
States must guarantee the right to truth, justice and reparations for human rights violations and international crimes and ensure that all those allegedly responsible are held accountable in fair trials.
Economic and social rights
Many countries in the Americas failed to meet their commitments to guarantee economic and social rights in 2025. This disproportionately affected already disadvantaged population groups.
The right to health was not guaranteed for everyone. In Guatemala and Haiti, the sudden reduction of US aid in early 2025 impacted the availability of healthcare services. Cuban authorities admitted in July that only 30 percent of essential medications were available. In Paraguay, the healthcare crisis persisted because public investment fell below the World Health Organization’s recommended six percent of GDP. In Uruguay, access to psychotherapy was inadequate, and the suicide rate was alarmingly high.
The right to education was undermined by budget cuts and violence. In El Salvador, the number of school enrollments fell by 25,000 in the first months of the year. In Haiti, the prevailing violence prevented access to education.
In Argentina, the basic pension was insufficient to cover the cost of living, and more than three million people lived in poverty.
Barriers to accessing basic public services persisted. In Cuba, a prolonged electricity crisis with regular, widespread power outages affected millions of people persisted in 2025. In Guatemala, access to clean water and adequate sanitation was extremely unequal. The humanitarian crisis in Haiti continued, primarily impacting access to food, healthcare, and drinking water. Venezuela experienced recurring water and electricity outages and protests over the disruption of basic services.
States must ensure that all people can exercise their economic and social rights on an equal and non-discriminatory basis.
Right to a healthy environment
The UN Climate Change Conference (COP30), held in Brazil in November 2025, yielded only limited results and did not include a renewed commitment to phasing out fossil fuels. Furthermore, no firm pledge was obtained from high-income countries to increase their subsidies for climate finance, which are intended to fund adaptation measures for low-income countries.
Even before COP30, states in the Americas had not taken sufficient action against the climate crisis, which was still impacting human rights in 2025. The authorities of some countries, including Argentina and the USA, continued to deny the climate crisis.
Argentina’s climate goals and policies remained inadequate. Canada provided subsidies, grants, and tax breaks for petrochemical and fossil fuel projects. Ecuador continued to allow gas flaring in the Amazon, despite a 2021 court ruling ordering the removal of the flares. In the United States, the government declared a national energy emergency by decree and presented measures to secure “energy dominance,” including reviving coal mining despite the environmental and health damage it caused. Honduras lagged behind in developing and implementing climate change adaptation measures.
In Bolivia, climate change exacerbated deforestation and forest fires, as well as altered rainfall patterns, leading to increased water scarcity and impacting water and food security rights. In Brazil, water and rainfall scarcity, landslides, storms, floods, heat waves, and droughts had a particularly severe impact on vulnerable populations, especially Black, Indigenous, and low-income people. Paraguay faced increasing risks due to climate change, including droughts, floods, and rising temperatures.
Authorities must address the impact of the climate crisis on human rights through measures at the local and regional level in order to prevent or mitigate it.
Sexual and reproductive rights
In Chile, new regulations on abortion were passed in 2025 to ensure timely access. In Mexico, four states passed laws decriminalizing abortion. Despite these concrete advances, legal and practical barriers to accessing abortion persisted in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and the United States.
In the United States, the government reversed measures that had helped expand and protect access to reproductive health care and cut funding for specialized facilities and programs. In Puerto Rico, a law was passed requiring written consent from a parent or guardian for girls under 16 to obtain an abortion. The Dominican Republic passed a new penal code that prohibits abortion entirely. In El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua, abortion remained a crime under all circumstances.
Governments did nothing to combat the high pregnancy rates among girls and adolescents. In Argentina, a program that had successfully reduced the adolescent pregnancy rate by 49 percent over the previous four years was discontinued. In Peru, 992 girls had to carry their pregnancies to term.
The authorities must guarantee access to safe abortions and also ensure the realization of other sexual and reproductive rights.
Rights of women and girls
Women and girls continued to face alarming levels of violence. Femicides were widespread and documented in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay. In several countries, the data collected on this type of crime was insufficient and unreliable.
In Cuba, femicide was still not recognized as a separate criminal offense. In Puerto Rico, the appeals court declared an article of the penal code concerning femicide unconstitutional, as it violated the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence.
Further cases of violence against women and girls, including sexual violence, were recorded in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and the USA. In the Dominican Republic, the new penal code contained a regressive definition of sexual violence in partnerships that did not meet international standards.
However, there was also progress during the year, including the enactment of Law 1639 in Bolivia, which prohibits child marriage and marriage to children under the age of 18. Additionally, in January 2025, Colombia passed a law introducing the possibility of divorce at the sole request of one spouse.
States must take effective measures to end gender-based violence and ensure that women and girls can exercise their rights without discrimination.
