by Stephanie Ziebell (UNIFEM Governance, Peace and Security) on behalf of the UNIFEM Haiti Team
Most women's rights advocates describe Haiti as having a culture that inherently discriminates against women, where gender-based violence is exceedingly common, and a lack of access to economic autonomy renders women helpless in the face of such dynamics. Advocates for combating violence against women within government ministries, civil society and the international community have come together to form a national coordination mechanism to jointly tackle these various manifestations of violence against women.
UNIFEM is the women’s fund at the United Nations. It provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies to foster women’s empowerment and gender equality. This is not enough. Impunity for such crimes is the norm. Even if a woman is able and willing to seek out legal support, even if there is an organization ready and able to take on the case, even if there is a judge who will take the case seriously, this will not guarantee justice will be served. For example, it took nearly two years for the Decree of 11 August 2005, which for the first time recognized rape as a crime in Haiti, to be applied in Cap Haitien. This victory is but a drop in the bucket in a country where girls studying under a community's single street light are targeted because they are easy prey for perpetrators.
Despite widespread acknowledgement of violence against women and national level commitments to CEDAW and Belém do Pará, comprehensive national-level data on SGBV remains a challenge to collect. Recent studies suggest that domestic/familial violence is a primary obstacle to women's effective engagement in public life in Haiti, undermining their right to active citizenship. A Médecins du Monde survey on victims of violence in 15 health centers of Port-au-Prince in 2005 showed that 80% of the victims of violence treated were women and that 60% of the cases of aggression were sexual. 86% of the victims filed a complaint, but only 3.3% of the 79% who were inclined to take legal action actually took the cases to court (citing a lack of trust in the legal system).
Through its programming in Haiti, UNIFEM is working to combat issues of impunity and to strengthen women's community responses to violence. Working both at the national level and at the community level, we are committed to amplifying women's calls for justice, and to support institutional responses to these needs and rights. However, we do not work alone. Women's rights advocates battling violence against women in Haiti are taking political and security risks with their work. They need buy-in from judicial and security sectors and they need support from community and cultural leaders. In French the phrase "accompagner" or "walk with" is often used to describe the work of legal and other service providers. These committed individuals and organizations need the resources necessary to go the distance with each one of these cases so that justice for women in Haiti can be served.
Picture: via josephwenkoff on flickR, "haiti elections 2006"
