Update

Mak­ing Our Voices Heard

As the proverb goes, à quelque chose mal­heur est bon, or every cloud has a sil­ver lin­ing. Now that the world has finally woken to the call of Haiti’s suf­fer­ing, we are using this oppor­tu­nity to have our voices heard.

Over the last two weeks, we met with sev­eral mem­bers of Con­gress and top Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials to high­light the sec­ond impend­ing human­i­tar­ian dis­as­ter as the rainy sea­son looms and relief efforts fail to reach those in need, urge for account­abil­ity and trans­parency in aid dis­tri­b­u­tion as mil­lions in dona­tions remain unal­lo­cated, and advo­cate for broader human­i­tar­ian parole for the most com­pelling cases. We also tes­ti­fied before the Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights implor­ing donor states in the Amer­i­cas to respect human rights when pro­vid­ing assis­tance to Haiti, spoke about a path for­ward for Haiti at a forum orga­nized by the Con­gres­sional Black Cau­cus, and par­tic­i­pated in an NGO con­sul­ta­tion hosted by the UN Office of the Spe­cial Envoy, Inter­Ac­tion and the Euro­pean Union in prepa­ra­tion for the March 31 inter­na­tional donor con­fer­ence in New York.

As we turn our atten­tion to press­ing needs on the ground, includ­ing for­mu­lat­ing a legal response to the alarm­ing inci­dence of rape and gender-based vio­lence in the camps, we will con­tinue to apply pres­sure among pow­er­ful actors in the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity and work to ensure that jus­tice and human rights in Haiti stay at the forefront.

Take Action

We Can Do Bet­ter for Haiti’s Earth­quake Victims

Sign Peti­tion to Demand Trans­parency and Improved Aid Distribution

Please sign the change.org peti­tion below by click­ing here to let those who have received your char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions and tax money know that you still care enough about Haiti to watch where your money is going.

Tar­get­ing

Daniel Wordsworth (Pres­i­dent and CEO, Amer­i­can Refugee Com­mit­tee), Josette Sheeran (Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, World Food Pro­gramme), Hon. William Jef­fer­son Clin­ton (UN Spe­cial Envoy to Haiti), Jakob Kel­len­berger (Pres­i­dent, Inter­na­tional Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross), The Hon­or­able Bev­erly J. Oda (Min­is­ter of Inter­na­tional Coop­er­a­tion, Canada), Richard Stearns (Pres­i­dent, World Vision U.S.), Jean-Michel Sev­erino (Direc­tor Gen­eral, Agence Française de Développe­ment ), Richard Dreiman (Pres­i­dent and CEO Chemon­ics Inter­na­tional), Dou­glas Alexan­der, MP (Sec­re­tary of State for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment, UK ) and Dr. Rajiv Shah (Admin­is­tra­tor, U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tional Development)

Peti­tion Text

I sign this peti­tion to express my great con­cern that ten weeks after Haiti’s earth­quake, and despite over $2.5 bil­lion gen­er­ously donated to Haiti’s relief efforts (over $1,000/earthquake vic­tim), too many earth­quake sur­vivors live with­out basic shel­ter, food and healthcare.

Although I appre­ci­ate the heroic efforts that many indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions have made to respond to the earth­quake, it is sim­ply unac­cept­able that over 330,000 – over a quar­ter of the dis­placed in Port-au-Prince – have not received shel­ter mate­ri­als, and over half report not receiv­ing food aid. Earth­quake vic­tims report that they are not con­sulted by relief agen­cies, or involved in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of aid.

As a donor and a tax­payer, I am insist­ing that the gov­ern­ments and NGOs entrusted with the world’s gen­eros­ity respond more effi­ciently and effec­tively to Haiti’s earth­quake. This means:

1. bet­ter coor­di­na­tion among aid donors and providers;
2. allow­ing more par­tic­i­pa­tion of earth­quake vic­tims in the plan­ning and imple­men­ta­tion of earth­quake response projects; and
3. more trans­parency about where and how Haiti earth­quake funds are spent.

Thank you for your atten­tion to this matter!

Spe­cial thank you to Laura Ray­mond and Audrey Bethel for con­ceiv­ing of and host­ing an Art Auc­tion and Ben­e­fit for IJDH in Brook­lyn on March 26. And, thank you to every­one who joined us. It was by far our most hip and fun event yet!

IJDH and BAI team up with the RFK Memo­r­ial Cen­ter, NYU Cen­ter for Human Rights and Global Jus­tice and Part­ners in Health to call on donors to fol­low a human rights-based approach in giv­ing assis­tance to Haiti.

The BAI’s Mario Joseph tes­ti­fies before the Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights (IACHR) on March 23.

Attor­ney Jayne Flem­ing led a del­e­ga­tion to Haiti, coor­di­nated through the Lawyers’ Earth­quake Response Net­work (LERN), to inter­view poten­tial can­di­dates for human­i­tar­ian parole. Jayne is pic­tured here at the BAI office, the delegation’s base of oper­a­tions.