Honduran teacher Ilse Ivana Velásquez Rodríguez died around noon on March 18 in a Tegucigalpa hospital from injuries she received that day when riot police and the special Comando Cobra unit attacked a demonstration of thousands of teachers in front of the National Institute of Teachers' Social Security (Inprema). Protesters initially said Velásquez was hit in the face by a tear gas grenade and was then run over by a police vehicle. The Spanish wire service EFE later reported that she fell in the confusion when the police attacked and was hit by a vehicle belonging to a local television station; EFE said the driver, Carlos Eduardo Zelaya Ríos, turned himself in to the police that evening.

Observers said Haiti's March 20 presidential and legislative runoff elections were relatively calm, at least in comparison to the chaotic first round on Nov. 28. A number of polling places in the capital opened hours late, apparently because the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 13,000-member military and police occupation force, failed to get voting materials to them on time. In some cases voters held spontaneous protests over the delays. There were also a few armed confrontations: two people were killed and three were wounded in electoral disputes, one at Marre Rouge, Northwest department, and the other at Marchand Dessalines, in the North department's Artibonite region.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton announced on March 19 that the US ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, had resigned. Pascual, who has only been at the post for a year and five months, will remain in Mexico to organize an "orderly transition," Clinton said. Pascual's resignation came after a number of embarrassing revelations about US-Mexican relations, starting with the WikiLeaks group's publication of diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Mexico. Some cables showed US diplomats losing confidence in the militarized "war on drugs" that President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa ordered shortly after taking office in December 2006. Calderón made it clear during a visit to Washington on March 3 this year that he wanted Pascual replaced, but State Department officials said at the time that they had no plans to remove the ambassador. (La Jornada, Mexico, March 20)

Indigenous Mapuche-Tehuelche organizations and allied groups marched in Esquel, in the western Argentine province of Chubut, on March 10 to support Santa Rosa Leleque community members as they filed an appeal in a land dispute with Compañía Tierras Sur Argentino SA, a subsidiary of the Italian multinational Benetton. A decision by Judge Omar Magallanes favoring Benetton had been announced on March 1; Magallanes conceded the multinational 500 hectares where the community is located and ordered the Mapuche residents to leave within 10 days.

A coalition of Puerto Rican feminist organizations held a march in San Juan on March 8, International Women's Day, from the Labor Department building to the Río Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), the site of months of student protests against an $800 tuition surcharge. The marchers held a rally when they reached the campus, with an artistic presentation and various speeches. Adriana Mulero, a leader in the student protests, charged that conservative governor Luis Fortuño had worked against women's rights with his austerity program, which she had left many women heads of households without jobs. She also dismissed "Man's Promise," a program Fortuño has promoted as a way to end domestic violence, as reinforcing male stereotypes.

The National Ballet of Cuba, under the direction of the renowned Alicia Alonso, marked International Women's Day with a special performance on the evening of March 7, honoring women heroes of the 1959 Revolution, including the late Vilma Espín, wife of current president Raúl Castro. (AFP, March 8, via Terra, Peru)

Mexican social organizations and human rights groups carried out actions in at least eight states on March 8, International Women's Day, to demand that the authorities end the murders of women, categorize femicide as a special crime, and pay attention to women's demands.

Central America is said to have the highest rate of femicides—misogynist murders—in Latin America, and many women's rights organizations marked International Women's Day on March 8 with street protests demanding that the region's governments take measures to stop the killings.