Haiti: Find­ings of Human Rights Organizations

Pub­lic Brief­ing on Haiti

Haiti: Find­ings of Human Rights Organizations

When: Tues­day, March 23, 2010

Where: TransAfrica Forum, 1629 K Street, NW, Suite 1100, Wash­ing­ton, DC 20006 (Far­ragut North Metro Station)

Time: 6:00 – 7:30pm (light refresh­ments served)

Cost: Free and open to the public

Despite reports that the sit­u­a­tion in Haiti is sta­ble, many human rights orga­ni­za­tions report a dif­fer­ent story. While USAID and the U.S. South­ern Com­mand are now assert­ing that the demand for food and med­ical care is not exceed­ing the capac­ity on the ground, TransAfrica and its col­leagues have found these reports wholly untrue. Hun­dreds of thou­sands of Haitians are going with­out food, shel­ter, san­i­ta­tion and med­ical care, and the bureau­cratic process to receive help is cost­ing lives. Even though more than $1 bil­lion has been col­lected for Haiti relief, tens of thou­sands of Haitians go with­out nour­ish­ment, basic med­ical assis­tance and ade­quate san­i­ta­tion units.

In response to these and other human­i­tar­ian and human right con­cerns, promi­nent human rights attor­neys will tes­tify before the Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights on the morn­ing of Tues­day, March 23, 2010. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Insti­tute for Jus­tice and Democ­racy in Haiti, RFK Cen­ter for Jus­tice and Human Rights, and Bureau des Avo­cats Inter­na­tionaux will pro­vide first hand accounts of human rights vio­la­tions post-earthquake.

Fol­low­ing their tes­ti­mony and meet­ings with key Con­gres­sional Mem­bers, the del­e­ga­tion will answer ques­tions at TransAfrica Forum. Join us on Tues­day, March 23 at 6:00pm and hear a poignant, more per­sonal ver­sion, of the present sit­u­a­tion in Haiti.

TransAfrica Forum is the lead­ing advo­cacy orga­ni­za­tion for Africa and the African Dias­pora in U.S. for­eign pol­icy. In its 30 year his­tory, TransAfrica Forum helped lead the world protest against apartheid in South Africa. The orga­ni­za­tion was a key player in the restora­tion of Democ­racy in Haiti and lim­it­ing U.S. oil com­pany power in Nige­ria. Today TransAfrica Forum con­tin­ues to work for human and eco­nomic jus­tice for African peo­ple on the con­ti­nent of Africa, in Latin Amer­ica and in the Caribbean. Our web­site is www.transafricaforum.org.

Please RSVP to dialogue@transafricaforum.org or call 202.223.1960 ext 131.