So I keep thinking I have an idea of what to expect before I go to Haiti, and then something new comes out and my perspective shifts again. Here is the latest thing to really freak me out.
In the absence of any official tracking of women and girls raped, except for a United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)-led effort just initiated in 10 displaced persons camps in Port-au-Prince, KOFAVIV keeps its own tally. As of March 21, KOFAVIV outreach workers had tracked 230 cases of rapes in 15 camps, or 15.3 incidents per camp. Hundreds of such camps dot the city, their size varying from hundreds to more than 20,000. The ages of those raped in this sample range from 10 to 60, the majority of them teenagers.
Post-earthquake Haiti is plagued by high levels of anxiety and frustration among the population; hundreds of thousands of newly homeless females sleeping on the streets and in tent settlements, many of them alone; disorganized and inadequate policing; and a nonfunctioning justice system. For women and girls, this is a deadly combination.
The danger is compounded by the fact that thousands of prisoners, including convicted rapists, are now at large after escaping from the National Penitentiary. And the majority of police who were trained in gender-based violence were reportedly killed in the quake.
The full story can be found here, at the Huffington Post.
The article then continues with more anecdotes of rapes committed (they are all triggering, and I mean REALLY triggering, more so than I expected) and with accounts of KOFAVIV's (The Commission of Women Victim-to-Victim) attempts to mitigate and intervene in the violence against women and children in the IDP camps.
GVN hasn't talked about this at all, and I don't know what the situation is in the camps in Jacmel, but I imagine it is much the same. Of course, people are now "moving on" from Haiti as a cause, since the earthquake was months ago, which is an eternity in the fast-paced world of media coverage, so I am not sure how much we will hear about the conditions in the camps, aside from in the Huffington Post, which I generally don't care for.
Heya Katie.
ReplyDeleteThis may not be an appropriate place to put this, but I couldn't find any other place, and certainly I wanted to say hi and thank you.
I do not in any way at all mean to detract from the serious tone of your note, so I'll keep it short and just say this.
I heard from Celestine (Vessira) that you had RT'ed the link to the Craigslist ad that I posted about the Doctor. Yeah, that was me.
I wanted to say thanks for RT-ing. I appreciate it. I thought it was a clever bit of writing myself. So, thanks!
-M
Hi M! I am glad you wrote that- it made my day! (As well as Celestine's!) I'd love to see more of your writing :)
ReplyDelete