AGAINST PARTY OVERVIEW

POSITIONS

Carlos René Ratliff Banegas – Environmental engineer and current member of the
Secretaría de Estado en los Despachos de Agricultura y Ganadería (SAG)

Grisell Andrea Rojas Alvarenga – Lawyer with Master’s Degree on on Public

Administration, current Congressional Representative and former member of the
Federación de Asociaciones Protectoras de Animales (FAPA)

Juan Freddy Espinoza Aguilar – Civil engineer and current member of the
Asociación de Municipios de Honduras (AMHON)

POSTURE SUMMARY

As the party against the creation of a brand new entity with the purpose of
overseeing and enforcing the Ley de Protección y Bienestar Animal, our objective is
to demonstrate that the creation of such an entity is not needed, citing the current
efforts of the authorities to fight animal cruelty. The competent institutions to
overlook the enforcement of this new law are the municipalities and the Consejo
Nacional de Protección y Bienestar Animal (CONAPROBA). The existence of this
council would invalidate any efforts to create a brand new entity that would perform
similar functions.

Our second objective is to fight animal cruelty more actively without the need to
create a new entity or by reforming the current Ley de Protección y Bienestar
Animal. This includes strategies focusing on education on animal cruelty in schools
and police institutions, including animal cruelty awareness and prevention courses in
schools to show younger citizens about the importance of preventing the
mistreatment of animals and to develop a specialized animal protection and welfare
investigation and response unit in the Ministerio Público to speed up case
resolutions in the matter. The keyword to prevent any problem is “education.” By
educating younger citizens and authorities on this topic, animal cruelty can be
prevented more efficiently by giving them a solid formation on this topic to prevent
both the mistreatment of animals and the proper prosecution of those who do
mistreat animals.

LEGAL BASES

Article 3 of the Ley de Protección y Bienestar Animal states the creation of the
current Consejo Nacional de Protección y Bienestar Animal (CONAPROBA) as an
ally to municipalities to oversee the law. This council is integrated by 12
representatives from different institutions, among them the Secretaría de Estado en
los Despachos de Agricultura y Ganadería (who acts as president), the Asociación
de Municipios de Honduras, Federación de Asociaciones Protectoras de Animales,
etc.

CONAPROBA must comply with the following responsibilities, as detailed in article 4:

recognize and approve any proposal of the Animal Protection and Welfare National
Policy, promote the compliance of this law and ways to ensure the welfare and
protection of animals, promote education on animal cruelty, promote alliances with
municipal authorities and civil society, approve the creation of temporary
departments and committees that will serve as auxiliary groups, and engineer
sterilization and vaccination campaigns. The same law’s article 8 reiterates
CONAPROBA’s obligation to supervise the enforcement of said law. Even though
this current institution remained mostly inactive since its creation in 2015,
CONAPROBA’s reactivation took place on April 20, 2022 through the guidance of
Partido Salvador de Honduras (PSH) congresswoman Iroshka Elvir’s efforts, and
alongside the Secretaría de Agricultura y Ganadería’s minister, Laura Suazo.