Inequality, corruption, natural disasters and a virulent gang culture have made Honduras one of Central America’s most insecure countries.
A huge wealth gap has fostered malnutrition, poor living conditions and infant diseases. Half of Honduras’s population are aged under 19, but high levels of poverty and unemployment render their prospects bleak. In such circumstances, many young people turn to gangs for a sense of belonging and income from drug trafficking.
These youth gangs, known as maras, attract tens of thousands of members and use intimidation and violence to control poorer districts of towns and cities. The police, meanwhile, are alleged to have formed ‘death squads’ responsible for the killing of street children and young people.
Honduras, like Guatemala, has experienced the effects of organised crime, especially with respect to illicit trafficking. Last year, it recorded the highest homicide rate in the world and has also become one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists.
However, what distinguishes Honduras from its Central American neighbours is the 2009 coup against President Manuel Zelaya. The coup facilitated the expansion of organised crime in the country.
Foreign-owned banana plantations dominated the Honduran economy until the mid-20th century, and political autonomy was ceded to external powers, principally the US.
Honduras’s rich natural resources and complex ecology are still vulnerable to multinational exploitation. For instance, La Mosquitia, Central America’s ‘Little Amazon’, is under ongoing threat from mining and hydroelectric companies.
Cattle ranchers are also clearing areas of rainforest and intimidating indigenous communities who lack formal land rights but whose ancestors have lived there, sustainably, for centuries.
According to projections, Central America is the most vulnerable of all the world's tropical regions to climate change. The United Nations identified Honduras among the 20 most vulnerable countries in the world for floods and the most vulnerable to hurricanes.