"HAITI: UPDATE ON WOMEN"

APRIL 1995

I. From Violence to Justice1

II. Reclaiming Hope and Life: Women in the Popular Democratic Movement

III. State Response: Ministry on the Status and Rights of Women

I. From Violence to Justice

Under the coup regime (Sept. 30, 1991 – Oct. 15, 1994), killings, abductions, torture, imprisonment, and political terror were directed against the Haitian people and their movement to restore democracy. Particular forms of brutality —notably, rape— were directed specifically against women and girls. Soldiers and their paramilitary attachis attacked and raped girls as young as three years old and women as old as 72. Some of the targets were democracy activists; many were randomly selected.

The campaign to terrorize the movement into silence did not succeed. President Aristide returned to Haiti on October 15, 1994, along with the opportunity to rebuild participatory democracy. With this return, the epidemic of state-sponsored violence ended. Women and all citizens have experienced a dramatic surge of political space and governmental support for their struggle for justice and empowerment.

Scars

While occasional attacks by zenglendo (armed thugs who work with the paramilitary network) continue, rape as a regular form of state-sponsored abuse does not. Yet the effects of the crisis continue to live on in many forms, and must be addressed for women and the society at large to be able to heal and move forward.

Under the coup regime, women suffered not only sexual violence. They were tortured, beaten, and detained. Many lost their husbands, either through their having been assassinated, 'disappeared', or forced into hiding or exile. Their children were often beaten. The attackers typically stole all of the women's meager possessions.

The coup regime devastated the society in countless ways. When the wave of rapes began occurring on top of this, women were already suffering. Those targeted were thus especially emotionally and psychologically vulnerable. The devastation of the brutalization continues to manifest itself in many ways.

Women express that they have been living with ongoing fear. Many never had the option to go into hiding or exile to protect themselves; especially given the death or flight of so many men, the women had to remain behind to care for their families. Besides fear, many of those raped are burdened by feelings of guilt, shame, responsibility. " 'I should have…' is a common statement," said a counselor working with some women. "There are all the 'shoulds' that the women take on their shoulders."

As in most societies, there is a culture of silence to be battled. "The suffering has to be uncovered," said one therapist. "But most of the women haven't learned to talk about it. Most don't even have the language to talk about it." Beyond the shame which silences the women, during the coup most of the women and girls had to hide what they had experienced for fear of worse repercussions if they spoke out.

As poorly prepared as any woman is to deal with having been raped, the effects on children are infinitely worse. Under the coup, girls were frequently raped. In one not atypical example, all eight girls in a Cite Soleil family were molested by attachis. One advocate received a report of a young boy having been raped, and expresses concern that other such cases occurred. The living impact on children, Haitian psychologists say, is crippling, and may be felt for generations to come. One effect is that, in a country where women already have little access to education, numerous schoolgirls have had to drop out of school.

There is additional trauma as mothers (and fathers) must care for children who were conceived as a result of rape. The babies born from this violence are living reminders of the terror the mothers experienced. For poor families, one more child can greatly stress survival abilities. Abortion in this staunchly Catholic country is usually not an option. Even when desired, it is rarely affordable. One Evangelical woman raped during the coup period is wrestling painfully with her current pregnancy. She is devastated over the approach of this child, but feels she has no other choices. "What am I to do?" she asked.

Damage has occurred to families. One woman, discussing the pain she and her husband have experienced since the attack, said, "I never, ever cheated on my husband. But he was there, watching me, while a man was raping me." Then there are the psychological and emotional effects on the children who witnessed the rape or other violence against their mothers or sisters.

Women are also deeply worried about illness. Most troubling is the prospect that the rapists have passed the AIDS virus on to their victims. Some cases of HIV contracted through rape have already been registered; others will not show up for years. Other potential results are sexually transmitted diseases and vaginal infections. One of the main concerns of women's advocacy groups is that many of the survivors have no access to medical care. Even where it is available, treatment of sexually transmitted diseases is not a systematic part of health care in Haiti.

Fresh Wounds

While the history of state-sponsored violence has ended, former attachis, ex-military, and zenglendo remain armed and continue to use violence in an effort to destabilize the society and undermine participatory democracy. Sporadic rapes and attacks against women continue. A few recent cases include:

* On October 6, l994, three weeks after the Multinational Force invasion, a woman and her three girls were at home in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Nazon when ten attachis forced their way into the house. Three of the armed men raped the 13-year-old girl, more raped the 18-year-old, and all raped the 20-year-old. Then the men dragged the oldest across the yard, struck her head on the iron fence, and threw her on the ground. The attachis then took turns jumping on the young woman's stomach.

* In l993, a middle-aged woman was raped and became pregnant as a result. She had the baby. This past fall, after the return of President Aristide to Haiti, when her child was four months old, armed men raped her a second time.

* On the evening of March 16, 1995, a schoolgirl of approximately 16 years was riding in a car across Port-au-Prince with her neighbor. En route, a man armed with a .45 caliber pistol stopped the car and forced the driver to the ground. After robbing the driver, the zenglendo stole the car and kidnapped the girl. He raped and terrorized her before finally releasing her.

* Women figure prominently among the targets of a recent wave of car-jackings by armed men.

Towards Individual Healing

"Care for the wounds hasn't been available," said a specialist in post-rape treatment. "And that has slowed the healing process." Some women's groups, popular organizations, and service providers performed heroic work under the coup, offering what help they could. But in addition to grave security risks, they had trouble securing the necessary funding and human resources. For the most part, though, support networks for the survivors have not existed. As rape in Haiti was previously a rare phenomenon, communities are largely unprepared to help the women after their ordeal.

Now there is a broad effort to speed the healing process. Virtually all Haitian women's advocacy groups articulate care and assistance for rape survivors as an urgent priority. To address the needs of the women, the Ministry on the Status and Rights of Women, national and grassroots women's organizations, community groups, and mental and medical health care workers are focusing on numerous forms of intervention and advocacy.

Battling the social barriers against openly addressing rape, financial constraints, and a dire shortage of trained personnel, support efforts are underway. They involve:

– Conscientization and frmasyon (grassroots education) programs to help the women and their communities talk about rape and violence;

– Assistance with housing and financial needs of the survivors;

– Educational materials for survivors and their support networks;

– Legal advocacy to help the women who wish to file complaints;

– Psychological counseling and support therapy for the girls and women;

– Family counseling for families which have been torn apart through violence;

– Health services, including training of new lay health care providers, for medical care and follow-up; and

– Counseling and treatment for survivors who are HIV-positive.

Ultimately, however, intervention for survivors can only be fully successful when tied to justice and rights which can help transform women's lives. Women indicate that they need political justice to help alleviate the trauma of their experiences and their fear of its recurrence. As for economic justice, a Haitian social worker comments, "Health and psychological work are not helpful if they don't stand on a base of economic well-being, through which the women can eat and their kids can go to school, so that the women can feel that they are people."

Towards Collective Justice

Doulh yon fanm se pou tout fanm, goes a Haitian expression. The pain of one woman is suffered by all women.

"The violence may have occurred against one woman, but it is not individual violence," says a Haitian grassroots activist. "The injustice has been systemic, and therefore we need to emphasize a collective response."

"Our first response to violence is to mount a call for justice," declares one young animath, or facilitator, in a discussion about rape. The campaign for justice is focused on redressing past abuses as well as on insuring that the horror which Haitians suffered under the coup period never returns.

There is broad agreement among women in the democratic movement on the demands for justice. They are:

That the perpetrators of the crimes be tried and prosecuted;

That disarmament of all illegal weapons occur immediately;

That the women who were attacked find reparations;

That new laws better protect women against all forms of violence, domestic as well as political;

That violence and impunity are no longer tolerated, and that the old structures which allowed them (e.g. chef seksyon, the corrupt and illegitimate rural sheriffs; FRAPH; attachi networks; military) be disbanded; and

That women —especially poor women— gain a voice in society through which to mount their calls for security and justice.

II. Reclaiming Hope and Life: Women in the Popular Democratic Movement

Women's Voices in the Movement

The grassroots women's movement for justice has been gaining public visibility in Haiti since Jean-Claude Duvalier's ouster in February, 1986 when, within two months of the end of the thirty-year Duvalier dictatorship, women held two major demonstrations. The first was a march of 2,000 peasant women in Papaye. The second, in Port-au-Prince, was attended by 15,000 women from various sectors. The demands focused on rights for all citizens and rights specific to women. Since then, women's voices in determining and stating the democratic agenda have grown increasingly loud and articulate.

During the past six months, women have been working steadily to reclaim the political space lost during the coup d'itat. "During the three years of the coup," said an organizer in the grassroots church, "there was an attempt to crush women's morale. Instead, women matured, and saw the necessity of bonding together to defend ourselves. Now our political commitment is stronger than ever." As for the dynamism occurring since the political opening of October 15, l994, one national women's organizer said, "The same sort of push is going on now as after l986."

Discussion and initiatives generated by the new Ministry on the Status and Rights of Women and the national move to find justice for rape cases are prompting grassroots women to coalesce and act on women-specific initiatives. It is important to note that while the movement covers some issues which concern all women, most of the work focuses on redress of the political and economic disempowerment which is concentrated among the poor in general, and even more among poor women.

Today women are more visible and active than ever before. This is occurring at two levels. First, within mixed-gender grassroots organizations, women are increasingly expressing interest in acting as a group, and on issues which disproportionately disadvantage women. Women are gaining confidence in exercising their voice and leadership in these mixed groups. One of the hundreds of women who participated in a four-day peasant conference in March laughed, "The first day the women didn't speak. After that, we spoke a lot."

Secondly, the women's movement for justice and democracy has become one of the most organized sectors within the people's struggle. There has been a burgeoning of women's groups on the political scene, both through the renewal of previously repressed organizations and through the birth of new ones.

A random sampling of the new growth reveals the following:

To strengthen their role in mixed, traditionally male-dominated groups, women are increasingly forming their own committees. This is true within the tilegliz (Christian base community), peasant, and popular quarter (urban slum) sectors, to name a few.

Women from rural areas and popular quarters are starting their own grassroots groups or are asking to join in national women's groups. Many of these groups are organized around marketing and the economy. All of them speak of violence and inflation as major concerns;

In various areas of Port-au-Prince, women's organizations and women's divisions of popular organizations are working to form neighborhood-wide coalitions, or kowodinasyon fanm; and

Socio-professional women are becoming more active politically. They are prioritizing dwa fanm, rights of women, and the upcoming U.N. Conference in Beijing.

Priorities and Demands

Among the women organizing as women, almost none are organizing only on gender-specific issues, but instead on all matters of justice and participation which affect the society at large. There is broad agreement between popular women's groups on their priorities and needs.

+ Justice is overwhelmingly the first demand. This call includes: disarmament of paramilitary attachis and the related zenglendo network; prosecution of those responsible for crimes against the people, especially rape; damages to compensate victims; and judicial reform to ensure that the criminality and impunity end.

+ Credit to help combat inflation, unemployment, and poverty. Three years of a coup and an unevenly applied embargo have left most women —notably the market women, who form the backbone of Haiti's informal sector— without the capital to conduct business. Today in urban slums, for instance, credit is only available through loan sharks who charge up to 100% interest per month.

+ Participation in the affairs of the country. This means transparent and democratic government, the opportunity to influence political and economic policy, and a voice in local society.

+ Financial and technical support for organizing initiatives. The practical difficulties women face in building their movement are compounded by pressing poverty. One organizer illustrated the problem: "A group of 150 women in a gwoupman (grassroots organization) might only have two women among them who are employed. Where are they going to get money or resources to put their plans into action?"

+ Socio-economic empowerment through policies and programs aimed at helping the poor majority of the population. "When your stomach is in someone's hand, they lead you where they like," said one organizer from the peasant sector. To address this urgent need, women are calling for jobs, an end to inflation, education, health care, and development policies determined by and benefiting the people themselves.

Acting upon Words

The demands of women in the democracy movement are firmly rooted in action. The methodology of the movement includes several components. One is reflection and frmasyon, through which women learn from their own individual and collective experiences, articulate what must change, and explore how that change can occur. A second is organizing individuals into groups, in the knowledge that unity creates strength. A third is mobilizing into action.

A few of the many examples of women's recent organizing efforts are:

> Some community-based health care groups are working to make birth control more accessible to poor women;

> Women across Haiti mobilized on International Women's Day, March 8. They expressed their demands publicly in their neighborhoods and on the radio, and directly to the government within and in front of the National Palace;

> Women's groups are developing educational programs to help women know their rights;

> Human rights advocates are collecting and presenting to the government documentation regarding abuses against women;

> Throughout Haiti, women's groups and women from mixed-gender community groups are sponsoring meetings and conferences to articulate their demands and plan programs. Education and frmasyon programs are being initiated all over;

> On International Women's Day and again on April 1, women from Haiti and the Dominican Republic held international political exchanges on the Haitian-Dominican border;

> In several instances, women in rural associations are pooling their goods and energy to multiply the effects of their scarce resources. Some examples of women-led development initiatives include revolving loan funds and micro-enterprise cooperatives;

> Rape victims, their advocates, and other activists have held numerous fora throughout Haiti in the past several months to discuss how to respond to, and seek justice for, rape. Meetings have taken place among popular organizations, the Women's Ministry, human rights groups, and health care networks;

> SOFA (Haitian Women's Solidarity) is moving ahead with plans to open women's health clinics and legal clinics throughout Haiti.

III. State Response: Ministry on the Status and Rights of Women

"If there is one citizen who is hungry, we cannot celebrate liberty in the land. For the celebration to be real, those who have a lot must take responsibility to share it with those who have only a little."

This was first stated by the Haitian heroine Claire Heureuse upon Haiti's independence in December, 1803. It was restated by Dr. Lise Marie Dejean, Haiti's first Minister on the Status and Rights of Women, in January 1995 at the dedication of the former headquarters of the Haitian Armed Forces as the new Ministry. The transfer of the enormous building from one of Haiti's most powerful sectors to one of its weakest was a striking first step toward "celebrating liberty."

Minister Dejean articulated the rationale of the new Ministry in a statement last November. "How do we plan to empower the powerless? One word sums it up: accessibility. Access to the justice apparatus by implementing legal, medical and psychological aid to the victims of the crisis and victims of violence in general. Access to education. And access to economic resources."

Ministry Objectives

(The following is excerpted from "Message on the Occasion of the Inauguration of the Headquarters of the Ministry on the Status and Rights of Women.")

For the state to satisfy the needs of women, [the Ministry] must act on the following. [It must]:

Rapidly respond to the problem of violence committed against women.

Help all women find the following possibilities: credit to remove them from endless debt; education and training; good working conditions for women, especially in the market.

Support all women's initiatives to organize themselves, while continuing to work with other women in the population.

Launch a conscientization program on the rights of women and girls, and on prevention of violence against them.

Advance the universal women's struggle to force respect of their rights and to establish equality of women with men, reenforce solidarity with women from other countries, and to carry the voice of Haitian women further. [To pursue these aims,] we will prepare for the U.N. Conference on Women in Beijing, China for September, 1995.

Establish strategic program priorities in the following sectors: education and culture; violence against women; economics and work; the law; and communication.

Ministry Priorities and Programs

Due to the dwindling time left to the Aristide Administration and to the political and economic crisis from which Haiti is emerging, the Ministry on the Status and Rights of Women is focusing on what it considers the most urgent projects. It is also giving special priority to institutionalizing critical aspects of women's rights and well-being. Major programs either currently in the works or in planning stages include the following:

> Assistance for survivors of violence. A Legal Committee has been established to provide legal support for bringing cases of attacks against women to justice. The Ministry is developing a national program of health and psychological counseling for women who have suffered rape and violence, with local offices throughout the country;

> Establishment of local justice bureaus for women. Staffed by representatives of local organizations, the offices will do screenings; document abuses; help women file legal complaints; provide social services, health care, and psychological care; and perform crisis intervention;

> Development of a program of credit for market women, in conjunction with the Ministries of Agriculture and Finance. A revolving loan fund will help capitalize market women.

> Development of a women's health program, in coordination with the Ministry of Health;

> Creation of a non-sexist curriculum to be used in the school system and in literacy programs;

> Creation of a National Institute on Women's Rights; and

> Creation of a National Institute for the Family.

Additional recent initiatives by the Ministry on the Status and Rights of Women include:

> Sponsoring a conference, held on February 6, l995, regarding women's role in the upcoming elections;

> Hosting a large celebration on International Women's Day l995 (March 8). The Ministry invited delegations of peasant women, women from popular neighborhoods, and professional women to the National Palace to present their demands, and sponsored an all-day street celebration;

> Establishing the month of March as Women's Month, and sponsoring special women's events throughout it, such as an exhibit of products grown and created by women;

> Hosting a four-day conference in Port-au-Prince on violence against women. Over thirty grassroots women from throughout Haiti participated, learning about the penal code, civil rights, crisis intervention, and social service provision; and

> On March 24, 1995, hosting a conference on women's rights and laws at the State University.

If you wish to help the women's movement for justice and democracy in Haiti, the International Liaison Office for President Aristide (202-965-0830) would be happy to put you directly in touch with organizations in Haiti which are working on the issues discussed in this paper. Haitian grassroots women's groups have sent out calls for international assistance in the following areas:

* Human and technical resources. People with legal, medical, phychological, administrative, and fundraising skills are especially sought for post-rape support programs, and for the women's legal and medical clinics being set up throughout the country;

* Financial assistance for women's grassroots development initiatives and for rape survivor projects.

1N.B. These materials are being distributed by the International Liaison Office for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The International Liaision Office is registered with the Department of Justice, Washington D.C., under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, as an agent of the Government of Haiti. The required registration statements are available for public inspection at the Department of Justice. Registration does not indicate approval of the contents of these materials by the United States Government.