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Ecuador’s Fight Against Transnational Crime is Eroding Human Rights [1]
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Date: 2025-07
Once considered Latin America’s “island of peace,” Ecuador is now among the most violent countries in the world. While the crisis is complex, a surge in transnational drug trafficking has driven the country’s descent into violence and insecurity. Located between two of the world’s top cocaine-producing countries, Ecuador has become a transit hub for drugs bound for the United States and Europe. Organized crime has become deeply entrenched in the country’s political and legal systems, weakening democratic governance and impeding efforts to stem the narcotics trade.
In response to skyrocketing violence, President Daniel Noboa Azín launched a militarized crackdown that has undermined human rights protections. In January 2024, citing “internal armed conflict,” he declared a state of emergency and deployed the military against organized crime groups through the “Fénix” national security plan; provincial states of emergency have been declared and renewed a number of times since. While the Constitutional Court has repeatedly rejected Noboa’s claim of “internal armed conflict” as a justification for declaring states of emergency, the president’s militarized security campaign has continued unabated, with tens of thousands of individuals reportedly swept up in the first half of 2024 alone. The deployment of police and military forces into communities, especially Afro-Ecuadorian and Indigenous communities, has been followed by reports of serious human rights abuses.
The rise of transnational crime
Noboa’s emergency declaration in 2024 followed a years-long security breakdown that left many Ecuadorians yearning for a plan to restore stability and the rule of law. In 2017, many hoped President Lenín Moreno would preside over a new era of reform and open political competition. Those expectations dimmed as he proved unable to revert damage to Ecuador’s political institutions and economy rooted in former President Rafael Correa’s corruption and authoritarian measures, or curb rising crime. Moreno’s successor, Guillermos Lasso, struggled as well, and by 2023 Ecuador’s annual murder rate hit a shocking 46.2 per 100,000 citizens—up from 5.8 in 2018.
Lasso’s term ended with a snap election he controversially called in May 2023 in order to avoid impeachment, activating for the first time Article 148—a rare constitutional provision also called muerte cruzada that allowed him to dissolve the National Assembly and rule by decree (with some judicial checks) until polls were held that November. The electoral period was marred by violence and criminal interference, including the murders of Manta Mayor Agustín Intriago Quijano and presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio Valencia. Amid an increasingly chaotic environment, Noboa, a political newcomer with a hard-line security agenda, was elected.
By the time Noboa took office at the end of 2023, Ecuador’s prisons had descended into lawlessness, serving as centers of organized crime and spawning arms and drug-trafficking networks and turf wars that extended into the country’s streets and neighborhoods. Criminal groups like Los Choneros mushroomed in coastal provinces, fueled by the increased presence of transnational cartels and illicit armed groups from Mexico, Colombia, and the Balkans. A dollarized economy made money laundering lucrative, while Ecuadorians saw extortion, kidnappings, displacements, car bombings, and homicides spiral out of control.
The January 2024 prison escape of a major gang leader and violent gang attacks—including a prison revolt, bombings, and media station assaults—prompted Noboa’s nationwide state-of-emergency declaration. The iron-fist measure, reminiscent of Nayib Bukele’s repressive state of exception in El Salvador, suspended constitutional rights, put limits to freedom of association and mobility, and gave the government sweeping powers to monitor communications, search private property, impose curfews, and detain citizens without warrants.
The rule of law deteriorates
Human rights groups have reported shocking allegations of abuses by security forces since the first state of emergency took effect under the “Fenix” national security plan, including arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances. Rights monitors have described torture of detainees, include beatings, electric shocks, sexual violence, and tear gas misuse, as well as deaths in custody. There have moreover been allegations of security forces keeping detained individuals incommunicado, and denying them access to legal counsel and medical care.
Many of those affected are Afro‑Ecuadorians, Indigenous peoples, youth, and those living in poverty. Examples of due process violations and abuses against these groups abound. For instance, shortly after the initial emergency declaration, Indigenous guards from the Kichwa community in Putumayo were arbitrarily detained during a security operation and denied legal counsel. In a case that shocked the country, four Afro‑Ecuadorian boys between the ages of 11 and 15 were detained in December by military forces in Guayaquil after a soccer game. Their bodies were later recovered near a military base, charred and bearing signs of torture. A report by the investigative journalism outfit Connectas on the skyrocketing number of missing minors under Ecuador’s states of emergency found disappearances concentrated in coastal and highland provinces with large Afro- and Indigenous populations. While most disappearances were linked to forced recruitment into criminal groups, some involved detentions by state agents.
This June, Noboa was granted even broader powers to enforce the crackdown. Through an expedited process the National Assembly passed two new laws: one granting the president broad powers to declare an “internal armed conflict” and to define its response; and another that relaxes safeguards against abuses by state agents and intrusive intelligence gathering. The laws cement the president’s power to launch militarized crackdowns that undermine constitution protections and the rule of law.
Restoring fundamental rights and civil liberties
While Noboa’s crackdown was intended to combat transnational crime and a shocking rise in violence, it has seriously damaged the rule of law in a country where democratic institutions—the judiciary, the courts, the civil service—are already weak and compromised.
A critical step toward beating back transnational crime and establishing peace and security is improving the justice system so it can more effectively prevent, investigate, and prosecute organized crime. This requires protecting the physical security of judges, prosecutors, and police investigators; providing them with resources to pursue drug-related and arms- and sex-trafficking cases; and weeding out the corruption that impedes their critical work. Because Ecuador’s security dilemma is interconnected with actors in Colombia, Mexico, the United States, and other countries, measures to combat transnational groups should be undertaken in coordination with partners in those countries.
Furthermore, regional and international mechanisms should come to the aid of Ecuadorian civil society and human right defenders as they speak out against corruption and abuses committed by security forces, especially against Afro-Ecuadorians, Indigenous communities, and youth. The Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations have taken promising steps to investigate human rights violations linked to Ecuador’s states of emergency. They should hold the government of Ecuador accountable for prosecuting abuses by security forces, ensuring greater transparency, and aligning national laws with constitutional and international human rights standards.
The fight against organized crime is critical for Ecuador, but it cannot erode democracy in the process. Ecuadorians deserve to enjoy safety and security without trading away their fundamental rights.
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