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Sub­ject: RELEASE: Rights Groups Tes­tify about Haiti and Human Rights at Inter-American Commission

Embar­goed for Release
12:01 a.m., Tues­day, March 23, 2010

Con­tact:
Veerle Opgen­haf­fen, CHRGJ
917–526-1972

Monika Kalra Varma, RFK Cen­ter
202–460-4681

Mario Joseph, BAI
786–972-2089

Brian Con­can­non, IJDH
541–263-0029

Donna Barry, PIH
617–669-7109

Rights Groups Tes­tify about Haiti and Human Rights before Inter-American Com­mis­sion
Tes­ti­mony Details Haiti Aid Chal­lenges, Presses for Com­mis­sion Investigation

(Wash­ing­ton DC, March 23, 2010)—Members of the Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) should respect Haitians’ human rights in their post-earthquake assis­tance to Haiti, said experts from sev­eral promi­nent orga­ni­za­tions com­mit­ted to respect­ing human rights and improv­ing con­di­tions in Haiti in their tes­ti­mony before the Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights today.  The groups—Bureau des Avo­cats Inter­na­tionaux (BAI), the Cen­ter for Human Rights and Global Jus­tice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law, the Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH), Part­ners In Health (PIH),  the Robert F. Kennedy Cen­ter for Jus­tice and Human Rights (RFK Cen­ter), and Zanmi Las­ante (ZL)—based their tes­ti­monies both on their recent inves­ti­ga­tions into con­di­tions in Haiti fol­low­ing the earth­quake and their prior expe­ri­ences work­ing on advanc­ing respect for human rights and improv­ing con­di­tions there.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the groups made the fol­low­ing statements:

Mario Joseph, Bureaux des Avo­cats Internationaux:

“Inter­na­tional aid has been given gen­er­ously, but dis­trib­uted poorly, with­out input from earth­quake sur­vivors. As a result, chil­dren are going hun­gry, women are at risk of sex­ual vio­lence and exploita­tion, and fam­i­lies are sleep­ing in the rain, with­out water­proof shelter.”

Monika Kalra Varma, RFK Center:

“Rhetoric from inter­na­tional offi­cials sup­port rights-based prin­ci­ples such as trans­parency. How­ever, unless Mem­ber States take spe­cific steps to cre­ate account­abil­ity mechanisms—for exam­ple, by set­ting up a cen­tral web­site that tracks money pledged, project plans, and sta­tus updates—it will be nearly impos­si­ble for the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment and impacted Hait­ian com­mu­ni­ties to fol­low the money trail.”

Loune Viaud, Zanmi Lasante/Partners In Health:

“We have found that the best way to ensure that access to these ser­vices is both uni­ver­sal and sus­tain­able is by part­ner­ing with Hait­ian pub­lic insti­tu­tions which are ulti­mately respon­si­ble for ensur­ing that Haitians can access the right to health, water, food, and education.”

Meg Sat­terth­waite, CHRGJ:

“Rebuild­ing Haiti with­out con­sid­er­a­tion for human rights is lay­ing the ground­work for another dis­as­ter. This is a cru­cial oppor­tu­nity to turn the tide and put Haitians, their needs and their rights, at the cen­ter of the agenda. This means trans­parency, atten­tion to vul­ner­a­ble and excluded groups, and build­ing sus­tain­able access to water and food.”

An inde­pen­dent human rights body of the OAS, the Inter-American Com­mis­sion has a man­date to pro­mote and pro­tect human rights in the West­ern hemi­sphere.  The groups urged that the Com­mis­sion focus atten­tion on how inter­na­tional assis­tance is impact­ing the human rights sit­u­a­tion in Haiti and to ensure that assis­tance respects Haitians’ human rights.  The Com­mis­sion was specif­i­cally requested to under­take a visit to Haiti to inves­ti­gate the human rights sit­u­a­tion, and deliv­ery of assis­tance and to issue a state­ment set­ting out how OAS Mem­ber States can ful­fill their oblig­a­tion to respect human rights as they pro­vide assis­tance to Haiti.

To read the brief, tes­ti­monies, and sup­port­ing doc­u­ments, sub­mit­ted to the Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights in sup­port of the hear­ing, please click HERE.

To watch the hear­ing live, please click HERE.

Today’s hear­ing pre­ceded the much-anticipated March 31st Haiti Donors’ Con­fer­ence at the United Nations head­quar­ters in New York, where future aid to Haiti will be dis­cussed at length.  The groups recently issued a list of con­crete rec­om­men­da­tions out­lin­ing a rights-based approach to aid deliv­ery in advance of that con­fer­ence. They also gal­va­nized the sup­port of more than 300 NGOs world­wide, who signed on to a let­ter sent to donor states on March 17th, empha­siz­ing the need for a rights-based approach to drive all future aid to Haiti.  The groups have a long his­tory of work­ing on aid and human rights issues in Haiti.

For more infor­ma­tion about these orga­ni­za­tions, please visit their web­sites: www.chrgj.org, www.pih.org, http://ijdh.org, www.rfkcenter.org