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MEDIA ADVISORY

Tues­day, March 30, 2010

Joint Report Issued on Con­di­tions in Haiti’s Dis­placed Per­sons Camps

Authors Describe Urgency of Unmet Needs, Press for Bet­ter Aid Distribution

(Wash­ing­ton DC, March 30, 2010)–A coali­tion of lawyers, researchers, and sta­tis­ti­cians has issued a joint report detail­ing the dire liv­ing con­di­tions in six inter­nally dis­placed per­sons (IDP) camps in and around Port-au-Prince. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from promi­nent orga­ni­za­tions com­mit­ted to a rights-based approach to earth­quake recov­ery in Haiti–the LAMP for Haiti Foun­da­tion (LAMP), the Haiti Jus­tice Project at the Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel Uni­ver­sity (EMSoL), the Bureau des Avo­cats Inter­na­tionaux (BAI), the Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH), and the Lawyers’ Earth­quake Response Net­work (LERN)–conducted two dif­fer­ent sur­veys to assess relief efforts from the per­spec­tive of sur­vivors. More than 4,600 dis­placed per­sons were inter­viewed to deter­mine whether their basic needs were being met two months after the earth­quake. Both sur­veys found an enor­mous dis­con­nect between the aid promised and the aid received. The results are sum­ma­rized in the joint report, “Neglect in the Encamp­ments: Haiti’s Second-Wave Human­i­tar­ian Dis­as­ter”.

Despite the mas­sive inter­na­tional mobi­liza­tion of aid, an alarm­ing num­ber of Haitians con­tinue to lack shel­ter, water, food, and med­ical care. At least one in 10 fam­i­lies sur­veyed have no tents or tarps; at the Bouzi camp in Croix-des-Bouquets, nearly half of all fam­i­lies live fully exposed to the ele­ments. When a res­i­dent of the Acra camp in Del­mas was asked what she would do when it rained, she stated that she would “stand up all night.” Access to clean water remains a crit­i­cal issue. Nearly four in 10 fam­i­lies pur­chase drink­ing water because the water pro­vided by relief agen­cies is unfit for con­sump­tion. Sim­i­larly, while latrines are avail­able in some camps, they are fre­quently so dirty that many pre­fer to relieve them­selves in the street. For exam­ple, at Place St. Pierre in Pétionville, sev­enty per­cent of those sur­veyed report no access to san­i­tary facil­i­ties. Addi­tion­ally, half of all fam­i­lies have never received any food aid and a third have access to med­ical care. In sum, the over­whelm­ing major­ity of the respon­dents have not received the basic sup­port nec­es­sary to sus­tain human life and dig­nity in the camps.

The joint report–presented to the Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights in a hear­ing on eco­nomic and social rights post-earthquake on March 23^rd–pre­cedes the much-anticipated March 31^st Donors’ Con­fer­ence at the United Nations head­quar­ters in New York, where deci­sions about future aid to Haiti will be made. The report indi­cates that unless aid is dis­trib­uted more ratio­nally, there will be a sec­ond human­i­tar­ian cri­sis as the impend­ing rainy sea­son com­bines with poor san­i­ta­tion, over­crowd­ing and dis­ease to fur­ther dev­as­tate dis­placed Haitians. The authors there­fore urge gov­ern­ments, donors, and inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions to adopt a rights-based approach to earth­quake recov­ery and to pro­mote Hait­ian par­tic­i­pa­tion in aid dis­tri­b­u­tion. The report is the first step in a lon­gi­tu­di­nal study which will con­tinue to fol­low affected fam­i­lies and to issue rec­om­men­da­tions based on in liv­ing con­di­tions and aid pro­vi­sion in the camps.

To con­tact authors of the joint report, please see the infor­ma­tion listed here:

Tom Grif­fin, LAMP for Haiti

267–925-4435

Mario Joseph, BAI

786–972-2089

Brian Con­can­non, IJDH

541–263-0029

Sarah Mi Ra Dougherty, IJDH

617–640-5997

For more infor­ma­tion about these orga­ni­za­tions, please visit their web­sites: www.lampforhaiti.org and http://ijdh.org.