A new report by an influential rights watchdog has criticised President Javier Milei’s government, warning that its first year of office has led to “institutional deterioration” in Argentina.
In its annual global report, Human Rights Watch emphasised Argentina’s excessive use of police force, high child poverty rate and Milei’s discriminatory rhetoric since taking office as cause for concern. It also noted the president’s controversial nomination of federal judge Ariel Lijo, who has faced misconduct and corruption allegations.
“While the president has achieved a degree of economic stability through significant fiscal adjustments, this progress has been accompanied by a worrying institutional deterioration,” HRW’s Americas Director Juanita Goebertus Estrada said.
Upon taking office last December, Milei took his chainsaw to public spending and devalued the peso by more than half. Inflation sat at 20.6 percent last January. This rate has since dropped to 2.7 percent, marking one of its lowest levels in four years.
Despite Milei’s success in stabilising the country’s consumer prices, the non-government organisation noted extreme poverty rates following the rollout of the president’s austerity plan, with a third of children under the age of 14 living in extreme need.
The poverty rate has since decreased, however, from 52.9 percent at the beginning of 2024 to 36.8 percent at the turn of the new year. Still, private specialists warn of heightened scarcity in low-income sectors.
Gender and LGBTQ rights
Milei’s disregard for the rights of women and minorities — exhibited by the shuttering of the Women, Gender & Diversity Ministry and the INADI anti-discrimination watchdog — “has alienated Argentina from the basic consensus of other democracies and Western countries,” Goebertus Estrada said.
Two days ago, Milei lashed out against “the mental virus of woke ideology” in his speech to world leaders in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“Feminism, equality, gender ideology, climate change, abortion and immigration, are all heads of the same monster, whose aim is to justify the advance of the state,” Milei said.
This comes as the president drafts a bill — called “on equality before the law” — that will outlaw quotas for women, the disabled and the LGBTQ community in the legislature and judiciary, according to Perfil.
Argentina was the only country to reject a declaration on gender equality at the G20 forum in October.
Human Rights Watch highlights Milei’s anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and warned of its potential to incite violence, citing the May 2024 killing of three lesbian women in a Buenos Aires boarding house.
Opposition Peronist lawmaker Mónica Macha responded Thursday to Milei’s comments at Davos, saying that an unsupportive state could increase femicide rates.
“It is an authorisation so that violent men do not feel that they are doing something wrong or that they will have any consequences for their actions,” Macha said.
Seated on the other side of the isle, Civic Coalition president and national deputy Maximiliano Ferraro criticised Milei’s conflation of homosexuality, child abuse and pedophilia.
“A president of an entire country cannot use extreme examples to disqualify anyone, in this case homosexual couples and the LGTBIQ+ community. His speech is old, discriminatory and constitutes a form of apartheid,” Ferraro posted on social media.
Police violence
Human Rights Watch makes reference to Security Minister Patricia Bullrich’s ‘anti-picket’ protocol, which criminalises any public demonstration resulting in a roadblock, among other measures.
A number of demonstrations in the first year of Milei’s office saw clashes with police. Officers responded to a protest last June against Milei’s ‘Ley de Bases’ reform bill, for example, with rubber bullets, teargas and punches.
“In March, the Security Ministry published a resolution broadening the scope for security officers’ use of firearms. The resolution allows for the use of lethal force in an overly broad set of circumstances and undermines both administrative and judicial accountability for police abuse,” the report said.
Growing criticism
Human Rights Watch is far from the only group criticising the government’s approach to peaceful demonstrations.
In December, Amnesty International Argentina released a report that found Bullrich’s protocol to have resulted in 1,155 injuries. This count included 50 journalists and 33 individuals who sustained rubber bullet injuries to the head or face, said the NGO.
Government officials dismiss the criticism. In a recent interview with Radio Rivadavia, Bullrich scoffed at the findings, saying Amnesty International is “on the side of the criminals.”
Similar reports by local human rights groups, such as Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS), echo many of HRW’s findings — particularly relating to the right to peaceful protest.
Still, a CELS report released last month titled “Milei 1 year” mentioned an additional rights violation that the global report seemed to miss: indigenous rights.
“Since the 2023 electoral campaign, government officials have been advancing a racist narrative against indigenous peoples, steeped in a contrived nationalism that is both outdated and selectively aggressive,” CELS wrote.
Last October, the Justice Ministry cancelled an agreement that granted Mapuche groups use of two hectares in the Nahuel Huapi National Park. The deal was designed to provide terrain, recognise sacred land, build housing and stop evictions of indigenous groups.
Upon scrapping the deal, Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona referred to Mapuche groups as “terrorists.”
“For six years, groups of so-called Mapuches have usurped and infringed on Argentines’ heritage, ignoring law and authority,” Cúneo Libarona wrote in a post on social media.
CELS warns of how Milei’s Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI) could exploit indigenous territories for mining.
RIGI, a large investment incentive scheme, offers tax benefits to projects exceeding $200 million for up to 30 years. It welcomes forestry, mining, energy, and the oil and gas industries to Argentina with hopes of boosting economic growth.
“In cases of water scarcity, companies will have priority access to water resources over domestic supply needs. Furthermore, they are shielded from policies aimed at protecting human rights or the environment,” CELS wrote in its report.
Institutional integrity
Human Rights Watch follows a path paved by business associations, scholars, rights groups and picketers who mounted doubt over Ariel Lijo’s integrity as a judge after his nomination by Milei to the Supreme Court last April.
Members of the Argentine chapter of the International Society of Public Law said Lijo’s appointment would delegitimise the judicial branch. In a statement released last year, they accused him of being guided by “electoral politics, the undue protection of private interests, and the impunity of spurious business dealings.”
Lijo, who has a record of 29 disciplinary proceedings, “delayed, and otherwise manipulated, investigations into corruption,” the report asserted.
HRW additionally called attention to Milei’s approach to acknowledging abuses during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, which critics have called “denialist.” In June, six congresspeople of the ruling Libertarian Party visited individuals convicted and sentenced to jail time for crimes against humanity during the military dictatorship.
Those involved defended their actions by saying their visit was to observe the living conditions of the detainees.
The human rights watchdog added that Milei’s delay in filling hundreds of vacant federal and national judgeships “undermines judicial independence.” This problem has lingered throughout multiple administrations.
The Supreme Court has held two vacancies since December. The appointments of Lijo and nominee Manuel García-Mansilla would make Argentina the only Latin American country to have a high court composed only of men, the report noted.
“An all-male Supreme Court risks perpetuating systemic barriers that hinder women’s access to leadership roles in the judiciary, undermining broader efforts toward gender equality and diversity in public institutions,” HRW wrote in an article last month.
In full, the report analyses human rights issues across Latin America — what Goebertus Estrada refers to as an unrankable “multiplicity and complexity of abuses.” Authoritarianism is a common theme, she said.
Venezuela experienced electoral fraud and the killing of 23 protesters in post-election violence. Mexico, El Salvador and Peru underwent attacks on the judiciary, which Goebertus Estrada said “highlighted a worrying erosion of the separation of powers.”
Comments