From Human Rights Watch

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/02/19/un-security-council-better-shelter-security-needed-haiti-victims

Urgent Action Still Needed on Safe Camp Sites for Those Made Home­less by Quake

(New York) — The United Nations Secu­rity Coun­cil should make improv­ing the qual­ity and secu­rity of camps for dis­placed vic­tims of Haiti’s dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake a top pri­or­ity, Human Rights Watch said today in an open let­ter to the Council’s mem­ber states. The Secu­rity Coun­cil is being briefed today on the human­i­tar­ian sit­u­a­tion in Haiti by the UN emer­gency relief coor­di­na­tor, John Holmes, and the head of the Peace­keep­ing Depart­ment, Alain Le Roy.

Human Rights Watch com­pleted a field inves­ti­ga­tion in Haiti on Feb­ru­ary 12, 2010, and drew the atten­tion of Secu­rity Coun­cil mem­bers to areas it believes deserve urgent action. The team vis­ited 15 of the largest camps for dis­placed per­sons in Port-au-Prince and Jacmel (hous­ing 5,000 to 35,000 peo­ple each), and inter­viewed over 150 camp res­i­dents, local offi­cials, and staff of inter­na­tional relief agen­cies and UN bod­ies, as well as local activists and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of non-governmental organizations.

“Despite all the relief efforts, hun­dreds of thou­sands of Haitians remain in des­per­ate need,” said Anna Nei­s­tat, senior emer­gen­cies researcher at Human Rights Watch, who led the inves­tiga­tive team in Haiti. “The Hait­ian gov­ern­ment urgently needs to do all it can law­fully to make sites avail­able for camps for dis­placed and home­less persons.”

Despite the large-scale inter­na­tional effort to help the vic­tims, the major­ity of the 1.2 mil­lion peo­ple left home­less by the earth­quake con­tinue to be in des­per­ate need of vital assis­tance and pro­tec­tion. Human Rights Watch said it is con­cerned about the slow pace of efforts to acquire land needed to allow relief agen­cies to estab­lish camp sites that meet inter­na­tional standards.

With­out rapid action to pro­vide the land on which new camps can be estab­lished, the squalid and unsafe con­di­tions expe­ri­enced by hun­dreds of thou­sands of quake sur­vivors could become deadly as rainy sea­son begins. The cur­rent camps also lack secu­rity, leav­ing their res­i­dents — in par­tic­u­lar women and girls — at risk of violence.

Human Rights Watch has called for the fol­low­ing actions:

• Prompt and mean­ing­ful steps by the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment to law­fully acquire suit­able plots of land for the estab­lish­ment of new camps that meet inter­na­tional stan­dards, includ­ing ensur­ing that the titles for the allo­cated land are legally valid;
• Pro­vi­sion of a secu­rity pres­ence and patrolling at camp sites;
• Imple­men­ta­tion of mea­sures to reduce women’s vul­ner­a­bil­ity to sex­ual and gender-based vio­lence, in par­tic­u­lar at large camp sites. Such mea­sures could include con­struct­ing shel­ters that would pro­vide women a cer­tain degree of pri­vacy, ensur­ing a secu­rity pres­ence at camp sites, access for women to safe and hygienic san­i­ta­tion facil­i­ties, and ensur­ing that women have access to accu­rate infor­ma­tion about var­i­ous forms of assistance;
• Fur­ther mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion of food dis­tri­b­u­tion strate­gies to ensure that the food assis­tance reaches the most vul­ner­a­ble groups, includ­ing women, chil­dren, and peo­ple liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties at camp sites;
• Sus­pen­sion by all UN mem­ber states of invol­un­tary returns of Hait­ian migrants to Haiti until such time as con­di­tions con­ducive to sus­tain­able returns in safety and dig­nity are established.