Miriam Miranda

Miriam Miranda is a Honduran activist who advocates for the human and environmental rights of the Garífuna people. As the leader of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), Miranda has coordinated efforts to counter land theft by big tourism businesses, reclaim ancestral territories formerly belonging to Garífuna communities, stop drug traffickers, promote sustainable environmental practices, and support community leadership development for local youth and women. She has been illegally arrested and beaten by local authorities and kidnapped by drug traffickers.

Miranda has received the Óscar Romero Human Rights Award and the US Food Sovereignty Alliance's International Food Sovereignty Prize. In 2016, she was awarded the Carlos Escaleras environmental prize for 30 years of activist work.

Early life

Miriam Miranda was born in Santa Fe, Colón, a coastal Garífuna community in Honduras. travelling to various banana plantations.

She later studied at a university in Tegucigalpa. During her time as a student, Miranda became increasingly aware of social movements, particularly movements that supported the rights of low-income and indigenous women in Honduras. She eventually decided to focus on advocating for the rights of Garífuna people: mixed-race descendants of West African slaves who escaped to the Caribbean in the 1600s before settling in Central and South American countries such as Honduras.

Activism OFRANEH Miranda is the leader of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), which was originally established in 1979. The organization actively supports the legal rights of indigenous and Garífuna communities, while also providing resources to support community leadership development, environmental education, health education, and other services.

Members of OFRANEH have occupied areas of land in Honduras that once belonged to Garífuna communities, reclaiming the land as ancestral territory and making use of international human rights laws to avoid eviction. They have also brought legal cases to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights regarding the confiscation of former Garífuna community lands. In 2015, after Canadian businessman Randy Jorgensen illegally built a mega-tourism enterprise on Garífuna land, OFRANEH successfully brought Jorgensen to trial.

Other OFRANEH radio stations have focused on highlighting social injustices and the work of local activists. In 2016, Radio Lumamali Giriga broadcast an interview with Honduran activist Madeline David Fernandez, who had been arrested and allegedly tortured by Honduran police. The story was subsequently picked up by other radio stations and organizations. Miranda has been threatened and kidnapped in retaliation for her work,

In 2014, OFRANEH activists discovered that drug traffickers had clear-cut swaths of forest to build an illegal air strip in northern Honduras. After authorities were notified, the air strip was destroyed by the Honduran Army.

In January 2017, while in the port city of La Ceiba, Miranda and three other Garífuna community leaders were arrested and illegally detained by police. The arrest happened in spite of the fact that Honduras authorities had been ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to provide police protection for Miranda.

Role of women as activists Traditionally, Garífuna ancestral lands in Honduras are inherited by women and passed down to their children. Women are often deeply involved in the protection of land and the preservation of cultural traditions.

Awards and recognition In 2015, OFRANEH received the International Food Sovereignty Prize from the US Food Sovereignty Alliance. In October 2016, in recognition of her work defending Garífuna rights for 30 years, Miranda was awarded the Carlos Escaleras environmental prize.