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Help Hait­ian Women Fight Against Rape

Sign Peti­tion to Demand An Ade­quate Response

“The way you saw the earth shake, that’s how our bod­ies are shak­ing now” described one woman of a sec­ondary human­i­tar­ian cri­sis fac­ing the women and girls of Haiti.

As Haiti’s earth­quake top­pled build­ings, it also top­pled social struc­tures that pro­vided Hait­ian women some pro­tec­tion against sex­ual vio­lence. Rape was wide­spread before Jan­u­ary 12, but the hun­dreds of thou­sands of women now liv­ing on the streets or in camps, often with­out their fam­ily and neigh­bor­hood net­works, are more vul­ner­a­ble than ever. As of March 21, grass­roots out­reach work­ers had tracked[i] 230 cases of rape in 15 camps, over 15 inci­dents per camp, in a par­tial sur­vey. There has been no com­pre­hen­sive sur­vey and, sadly, UNIFEM’s data­base for col­lect­ing data on sex­ual vio­lence was destroyed[ii] in the earth­quake. But, with over 500 camps in Port-au-Prince alone, it is clear that sex­ual vio­lence is widespread.

There have been some efforts by Hait­ian offi­cials and the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity to pro­vide pro­tec­tion and post-rape ser­vices, but these efforts have fallen short. This is unac­cept­able. Numer­ous inter­na­tional stan­dards[iii] and guide­lines[iv] warn of height­ened lev­els of gender-based vio­lence in the wake of dis­as­ter and pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions for ensur­ing women’s safety, care and legal recourse. Con­trary to the rec­om­men­da­tions, Hait­ian women have been sys­tem­at­i­cally excluded[v] or under­rep­re­sented in earth­quake response deci­sions. Women’s repeated requests[vi] for inclu­sion[vii] in the Post-Disaster Needs Assess­ment (PDNA[viii]) process and the UN Donor meet­ings[ix] on March 31 went unan­swered. By leav­ing Hait­ian women them­selves out of the dis­cus­sion, so too were their needs.

On her visit to Haiti last week­end, UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha Rose Migiro lis­tened to women’s fears[x] of being sex­u­ally assaulted or beaten. She also noted the crit­i­cal con­di­tions peo­ple are liv­ing in (see a video on con­di­tions in the camps and sign a peti­tion demand­ing improved aid dis­tri­b­u­tion[xi]). The UN Inde­pen­dent Expert on Human Rights in Haiti, Michel Forst is in Haiti this week[xii] where he too will report­edly lis­ten to women and other vul­ner­a­ble populations.

The UN has taken the first step by lis­ten­ing to women. Action must fol­low. To call on the UN, and more specif­i­cally the Secu­rity Coun­cil, MINUSTAH, UN Mem­ber states and the Gov­ern­ment of Haiti, to take the next step, sign the peti­tion by click­ing here.

Tar­get­ing

Yukio Takasu, Pres­i­dent UN Secu­rity Council

Michel Forst, UN Inde­pen­dent Expert on Human Rights in Haiti

Rashida Man­joo, UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Vio­lence Against Women

Asha-Rose Migiro, UN Deputy Sec­re­tary General

Edmond Mulet, UN Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Secretary-General

Force Com­man­der Major Gen­eral Luiz Paul Cruz, MINUSTAH

Major Gen­eral Ger­ardo Chris­t­ian Chau­mont, UNPol, MINUSTAH

Peti­tion Text

I sign this peti­tion to express my con­cern about the inad­e­quate response to the ram­pant sex­ual vio­lence Hait­ian women and girls face daily. I applaud the three-day visit of UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha Rose Migiro to lis­ten to the peo­ple of Haiti in this time of cri­sis and her atten­tion given to these issues. More can and should be done. Inde­pen­dent Expert Michel Forst should build on the work of Deputy Migiro. When the Secu­rity Coun­cil meets on April 28, 2010, to dis­cuss imple­men­ta­tion of MINUTSAH’s man­date, gender-based vio­lence issues should be at the top of the agenda.

The UN, tasked with secu­rity and pro­tec­tion, must pro­vide for the pro­tec­tion and pro­mo­tion of women’s human rights in Haiti imme­di­ately. At the same time, the UN must be look­ing towards long-term solu­tions out­lined in the recon­struc­tion plan for Haiti, includ­ing incor­po­rat­ing women’s voices and assur­ing jus­tice for vic­tims of sex­ual vio­lence. A women’s per­spec­tive is crit­i­cal to avoid recov­ery poli­cies that inad­ver­tently repro­duce dis­crim­i­na­tion against women and leave them vul­ner­a­ble to gender-based vio­lence. Such actions would com­ply with the prin­ci­ples out­lined in key human­i­tar­ian doc­u­ments, includ­ing the UN Guid­ing Prin­ci­ples on Inter­nally Dis­placed Per­sons and the UN Gen­der in Human­i­tar­ian Response Work­ing Group’s Guide­lines on Gen­der Main­stream­ing.

I urgently request that the UN and more specif­i­cally the Secu­rity Coun­cil, MINUSTAH and UN Mem­ber states respond more effi­ciently and effec­tively to Haiti’s earth­quake. This includes mea­sures aimed a pre­ven­tion, pro­tec­tion and participation:

• Strengthen secu­rity in dis­place­ment camps, with spe­cific atten­tion to pro­tect­ing women from gender-based vio­lence. To this end, secure safe spaces for women to meet and orga­nize and encour­age, dupli­cate and finance ini­tia­tives of women’s groups, such as cit­i­zen camp sur­veil­lance committees.

• Con­sult with and include Hait­ian polit­i­cal, non-governmental and grass­roots women lead­ers in needs assess­ment, and in the design, imple­men­ta­tion, mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion of relief and recon­struc­tion programs.

• Urge police-contributing Mem­ber States to answer the call of the UN Depart­ment of Peace­keep­ing Oper­a­tions (DPKO) to deploy to Haiti more female UN police offi­cers trained as sex­ual and gender-based vio­lence specialists.

• Work with the Bangladesh Gov­ern­ment to dis­patch, in a timely fash­ion, the promised all-women Formed Police Unit (FPU).

• Pro­vide the means for vic­tims to report inci­dents of sex­ual vio­lence, and emer­gency health ser­vices for phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal support.

• Ensure the effec­tive col­lec­tion of evi­dence for account­abil­ity and prosecution.

• At the Secu­rity Coun­cil meet­ing on April 28, urge mem­bers to take strong mea­sures and actions to address the sit­u­a­tion of gender-based vio­lence, espe­cially in the Inter­nally Dis­placed Per­sons (IDP) camps in Haiti.

• Urge the Gov­ern­ment of Haiti to draft a National Plan of Action to imple­ment UN Secu­rity Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tions 1325 (2000), 1612 (2005), 1820 (2008), 1882 (2009), 1888 (2009), and 1889 (2009) with an appro­pri­ate time­frame and budget.

Sign Peti­tion by click­ing here.

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[i] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-bell/our-bodies-are-shaking-no_b_511397.html

[ii] http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/voices_from_the_field/story.php?StoryID=1028

[iii] http://www.idpguidingprinciples.org/

[iv] http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/IASC/downloaddoc.aspx?docID=4402

[v] http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=30194&t=Haiti%3A+++Women+demand+role+in+reconstruction

[vi] http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88662

[vii]http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5095/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2402

[viii] http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/SNAA-83U9LW?OpenDocument

[ix] http://www.madre.org/index/press-room-4/press-releases-34/news/press-conference-on-haiti-reconstruction-featuring-edwidge-danticat-and-marie-st-cyr-345.html

[x] http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/detail/93828.html

[xi] http://www.change.org/haitijustice/petitions/view/we_can_do_better_for_haiti_demand_transparency_and_improved_aid_distribution

[xii] http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/%28httpNewsByYear_en%29/EB00C4B1F539B02CC12577050055B495?OpenDocument