Agenda: Addressing human rights violations when dealing with the challenges of gang violence. 

Across the globe, organized criminal groups have increasingly filled the vacuum left by weak governance, turning entire communities into spaces where basic human rights exist only at the discretion of armed non-state actors. Transnational gangs govern territory, extract civilian compliance through fear, and treat human life as leverage in transnational disputes. This issue is highly prevalent in Latin America, where cross-border gang networks have transformed localized violence into a humanitarian crisis.

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The humanitarian toll is measured not only in homicide counts but in violations that rarely make headlines due to media suppression and control. These include families being uprooted overnight with no access to shelter or legal protection, children frequently being coerced into criminal networks and women falling prey to sexual violence as a routine instrument of asserting dominance. Displacement driven by this violence often leaves survivors without documentation, healthcare, or education, compounding their vulnerability to further humanitarian concerns rather than resolving it. Asylum-seeker numbers from Northern Triangle countries surged more than fivefold between 2012 and 2015, from roughly 20,900 to 109,800, a trend linked directly to organized criminal violence.

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State responses have rarely been able to resolve the humanitarian emergency. Mass "mano dura" crackdowns have led to arbitrary detention on the basis of appearance or neighbourhood alone, overcrowded prisons where due processes are routinely denied, and entire families facing collective punishment or displacement simply for living in gang-controlled areas. Children swept into custody are frequently processed without regard for juvenile justice protections, blurring the line between victim and offender.

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This committee must confront a humanitarian emergency where the largest perpetrators are violent non-state actors, yet the failures of protection remain squarely within the Human Rights Council's mandate. A sustainable response demands judicial safeguards and the prevention of emergency powers from becoming indefinite.

 

Delegates must deliberate the successful enforcement of independent oversight for detention and custodial conditions, dedicated juvenile justice pathways that separate coerced child recruits from adult offenders as well as cross-border reporting mechanisms that hold gangs and states accountable. Equally critical are long-term investments in community reintegration and prevention to address the governance vacuum itself. Above all, delegates must design solutions that centre the lived experience of the stakeholders most severely affected: young people and women navigating a landscape where survival itself is precarious.