“Situation of human rights in Guatemala - Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights”, 04 March 2021

... Guatemala continued to face systemic and structural challenges to the effective implementation of its human rights obligations, in particular poverty, inequality, discrimination, impunity and insecurity. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated those issues…[T]he Ministry of Labour received an average of 3,500 monthly complaints, three times as many as in the period prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most complaints concerned unjustified dismissal and violations of occupational health and safety standards...Challenges persisted in terms of labour conditions and decent work. Minimum legal wages are not sufficient...In the agricultural sector, estimated to employ 30 per cent of workers, wages are even lower...OHCHR monitored the situation of mozos colonos, rural workers who, like their ancestors, live in conditions amounting to servitude...Three important business sector associations developed human rights policies: the Guatemalan Exporters’ Association (AGEXPORT), the Association of Renewable Energy Generators (AGER), and the Guatemalan Palm Growers’ Union (GEPALMA)...Between January and July, OHCHR provided technical assistance to the Presidential Commission on Human Rights, which played an important role for the development of a national action plan on business and human rights. In September, the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs participated in the fifth Regional Forum on Business and Human Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by OHCHR, and reinstated the Government’s commitment to developing the action plan...The frequency and severity of attacks against human rights defenders continued to be alarming, and they included physical attacks, gender-based and sexual violence, threats, intimidation, surveillance and stigmatization. Indigenous peoples, women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender defenders, journalists, judges, and defenders of victims of the internal armed conflict faced particular risks...The misuse of criminal law against human rights defenders and journalists persisted, in the form of penalizing them or impeding their work...