Carmen Valeria Escobar Castillo
Carmen Valeria Escobar Castillo is a woman human rights defender and independent journalist. She currently works on issues in the Central American region through multimedia journalism. In the past she has worked in media outlets such as El Faro and Gato Encerrado exposing the government's lack of health plans.
The human rights defender community is regularly subjected to campaigns of defamation - they are labeled as 'traitors of the nation', 'terrorists' and 'subversive'. This tactic employed by the authorities is designed to discredit and undermine the work of human rights defenders by isolating and marginalising them, making them a vulnerable target for abuse. Community leaders and environmental activists who are opposed to large-scale mining projects face death threats and violence.
