AMERICAS REGIONAL OVERVIEW Discrimination and inequality continued to be the norm across the continent. High levels of violence continued to ravage the region, with waves of killings, enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions. Human rights defenders experienced increasing levels of violence. Impunity remained pervasive. Politics of demonization and division increased. Indigenous Peoples faced discrimination and continued to be denied their economic, social and cultural rights, including their rights to land and to free, prior and informed consent on projects affecting them. Governments made little headway in protecting the rights of women and girls, and of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. Huge numbers of people across the Americas region faced a deepening human rights crisis, fuelled by the downgrading of human rights in law, policy and practice, together with increasing use of the politics of demonization and division. Such regression risked becoming endemic in many countries. It exacerbated a lack of trust in the authorities – manifested in low levels of participation in elections and referendums – and in institutions such as national justice systems. Rather than using human rights as a way to secure a more just and sustainable future, many governments fell back on tactics of repression – misusing their security forces and justice systems to silence dissent and criticism; allowing widespread torture and other ill-treatment to go unpunished; and presiding over rampant inequality, poverty and discrimination sustained by corruption and failures in accountability and justice. Major regression in human rights was also driven by a series of executive orders issued by US President Donald Trump, including what became known as the “Muslim ban” and plans to build a wall along the US border with Mexico. Extreme and persistent violence was commonplace in countries including Brazil, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico and Venezuela. Violence across the region was frequently driven by the proliferation of illicit small arms and the growth of organized crime. Violence against LGBTI people, women and girls, and Indigenous Peoples was widespread. According to a UN report, Latin America and the Caribbean remained the most violent region in the world for women, despite strict laws aimed at addressing the crisis. The region had the world’s highest rate of non-intimate partner violence against women, and the second highest rate of intimate partner violence. Mexico witnessed a wave of killings of journalists and human rights defenders. Venezuela faced its worst human rights crisis in modern history. Killings of Indigenous people and Afrodescendant leaders in Colombia exposed shortcomings in the implementation of the country’s peace process. Land rights activists were targeted with violence and other abuses in many countries. The region continued to suffer from an alarming rise in the number of threats and attacks against human rights defenders, community leaders and journalists, including through misuse of the justice system. Huge numbers of people fled their homes to escape repression, violence, discrimination and poverty. Many suffered further abuses while in transit or upon reaching other countries in the region. The pardon granted to Peru’s former president Alberto Fujimori, who in 2009 was sentenced for crimes against humanity, sent a worrying signal about Peru’s willingness to confront impunity and respect the rights of victims. Amnesty International Report 2017/18 27