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Catholic
Online (www.catholic.org)
NEW YORK, NY (Catholic Online) - A
joint report released by a consortium
of rights organizations reveals that
young Haitian women are being forced
into sex in order to survive. This
reality, two years after the quake and
in spite of billions of dollars of aid
pledged to help, starkly demonstrates
the epic scale of the failure to
actually help the Haitian people
rebuild what they lost in 2010.
The report was released on Thursday by
MADRE, the Commission of Women Victims
for Victims (KOFAVIV), the
International Women's Human Rights (IWHR)
Clinic at the City University of New
York (CUNY) School of Law, the Global
Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law (GJC)
and the Center for Gender &
Refugee Studies at UC Hastings College
of the Law (CGRS).
According to the report, over one
million Haitians remain in
displacement camps which remain
relatively lawless. Within these
camps, life is especially difficult
for young women and mothers. The
problems are growing worse as aid
organizations, NGOs, and international
observers leave Haiti taking with them
what few services they were able to
provide.
Young women are faring the worst as
they try to support children and
survive without access to basic
medical care or education. In the
aftermath of the quake, rape became
epidemic in the camps. The crisis of
rape in the camps has been well
documented over the past two years,
but very little has actually been done
about it.
In addition to violent rapes however,
there is a second sexual epidemic
sweeping the camps. Women who cannot
feed themselves or their children
report being forced to sell themselves
for as little as a half-sandwich or a
few US dollars. The perpetrators of
this exploitation are usually men who
hold positions of power within the
displacement camp.
Women, especially those with children,
have very little choice in the matter.
If they do not submit-they, or their
children will go without.
Women in this situation also report
frequent beatings, men who refuse to
wear condoms, and that sometimes they
are not even paid at the end of the
night. Women must endure this brutal
treatment whenever they (or their
children) need access to medical care,
education, or even food.
Haiti has always had problems with law
and order, especially in poor
districts, but the earthquake made
everything much worse. Over 4,000
educational establishments were lost
in the quake and they have not been
rebuilt.
Despite billions of dollars in
international aid that was pledged to
the victims, two years later more than
a million people remain worse off than
ever before and their outlook is grim.
The root cause is that most of the
funds "pledged" for
earthquake relief and rebuilding were
actually allocated to various
government agencies (from different
countries), NGOs and aid
organizations. Many countries have
touted the billions they spent in
support of Haitian relief, but in
reality only a tiny fraction of that
money was ever truly intended for the
people themselves.
The tragic result is that a lot of
money has been spent and effort
expended, but virtually none of it has
made any impact on the long-term well
being of the victims. They may have
been kept alive, but their living
conditions remain deplorable.
The nation of Haiti remains in crisis
and the world is departing when it
should consider committing. As the
international community, NGOs, and aid
organizations draw down their presence
in Haiti, they leave a people and
country devastated by disaster much
farther from repair than what is
widely believed.
©
2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by
NEWS CONSORTIUM.
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