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For Imme­di­ate Release
July 27, 2010

Con­tact:
Blaine Bookey, Esq., Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti
blaine@ijdh.org, 415–515-8956

July 27, 2010; Port-au-Prince, Haiti — More than six months after Port-au-Prince was lev­eled by the Jan­u­ary 12 earth­quake, hun­dreds of thou­sands of dis­placed women and girls live in fear of rape in tent cities that lack light­ing, pri­vacy and secu­rity. Today, the Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH) along with part­ners MADRE, TransAfrica Forum, and the law schools of the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota and the Uni­ver­sity of Vir­ginia released “Our Bod­ies are Still Trem­bling: Hait­ian Women’s Fight Against Rape,” the first report of its kind to focus exclu­sively on the cri­sis of vio­lence against Hait­ian women and girls that has emerged in the after­math of the earth­quake. The report is the prod­uct of a fact-finding del­e­ga­tion to Haiti in May coor­di­nated by IJDH’s Lawyers’ Earth­quake Response Net­work (LERN).

Blaine Bookey, Esq., staff attor­ney with IJDH and coor­di­na­tor of the LERN del­e­ga­tion on rape and gender-based vio­lence, returned to Haiti this week to con­tinue advo­cacy efforts for Hait­ian women’s right to live free from vio­lence. Bookey is work­ing in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with women’s grass­roots groups, and con­tin­ues to con­duct fact-finding inter­views and gather evi­dence in prepa­ra­tion for fil­ing lit­i­ga­tion on behalf of assault vic­tims. She said today, “The find­ings pre­sented in this report illus­trate the cri­sis of rapes in the camps and the fail­ure of the gov­ern­ment of Haiti, the United Nations, and oth­ers in the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity to ade­quately address the prob­lem. The report aims to help these groups imple­ment a more effec­tive response so that these crimes against women will not go unpunished.”

The report released today con­tains the most detailed and up-to-date infor­ma­tion avail­able on the issue of gender-based vio­lence in Haiti, and con­crete rec­om­men­da­tions for an improved response to the cri­sis. It tracks the high inci­dence and preva­lence of rape in the camps, the lack of an ade­quate gov­ern­ment or inter­na­tional response, and the coura­geous work done by grass­roots women’s groups to address these threats. The find­ings from this report will be pre­sented to to Hait­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials, the United Nations and other human­i­tar­ian actors, and to donor states includ­ing mem­bers of U.S. Congress.

Lisa Davis, Human Rights Advo­cacy Direc­tor at IJDH’s part­ner orga­ni­za­tion MADRE, said today, “Our part­ners in Haiti have been tire­lessly work­ing, not only to pro­vide urgent care for women who have been raped in the camps, but to force­fully demand that address­ing this threat be a pri­or­ity in dis­as­ter response poli­cies. Together, our inter­na­tional human rights advo­cacy has kept this issue from being swept away and ignored.”

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion on IJDH’s work to sup­port Hait­ian women in their efforts to pre­vent rape, please visit the Rape Account­abil­ity and Pre­ven­tion Project web­site.

About the Orga­ni­za­tions:
The Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH) fights for human rights and jus­tice in Haiti and for fair treat­ment of Haitians in the U.S.

MADRE works to advance women’s human rights by meet­ing imme­di­ate needs and build­ing last­ing solu­tions for com­mu­ni­ties in crisis.

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