Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 22 juin 2016

 Senator: Red Cross Misled Congress, Refused To ‘Level With the People’ on Haiti Money

“One of the reasons they don’t want to answer the questions is it’s very embarrassing,” says Sen. Charles Grassley, who just finished a yearlong investigation of the Red Cross.

by Justin Elliott, ProPublica, and Laura Sullivan, NPR, June 16, 2016

This story was co-published with NPR.

A blistering Senate report on the American Red Cross raises fundamental questions about the integrity of the country’s most storied charity and its stewardship of donors’ dollars.

The report, which was released today by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and contains nearly 300 pages of supporting documents, found:

                  After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Red Cross spent tens of millions of dollars more than it has previously acknowledged on internal expenses. The Red Cross told Grassley that the money was largely spent on oversight to make sure the Haiti aid was used properly. But Grassley’s office found that the charity “is unable to provide any financial evidence that oversight activities in fact occurred."

                  Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern made false statements to Grassley’s office about whether the charity cooperated with congressional investigators.

                  McGovern and her subordinates have kept the charity’s own internal investigations and ethics unit “severely undermanned and underfunded.” The charity is “reluctant to support the very unit that is designed to police wrongdoing within the organization.”

There are “substantial and fundamental concerns about (the Red Cross) as an organization,” the report concludes.

In an interview about the report, Grassley said that even after a year of back-and-forth with the Red Cross, “we did not get satisfactory answers. It was like pulling teeth.”

Grassley launched his investigation following stories by ProPublica and NPR on Red Cross failures in providing disaster relief, including after the Haiti earthquake. The group raised nearly half a billion dollars after the disaster, more than any other nonprofit. But our reporting found that, for example, an ambitious plan to build housing resulted in just six permanent homes.

Red Cross officials, including McGovern, have repeatedly told the public that the charity retains 9 percent of donations to cover management and administrative costs. But Grassley found that a full 25 percent of donations — or around $125 million — were spent on fundraising and management, a contingency fund, and a vague, catchall category the Red Cross calls “program costs.”

On top of that 25 percent, the Red Cross sent the bulk of the donated money to other nonprofits to do the work on the ground. Those other nonprofits then took their own cuts for overhead costs — as much as 11 percent.

Over a year of written exchanges with Grassley’s staff, the Red Cross repeatedly revised its figures for the same projects.

“The most important thing (from the report) is an unwillingness to level with the people about exactly where the money went,” Grassley said in the interview. “There’s too many questions in regard to how the money was spent in Haiti that it gives me cause to wonder about money being donated for other national disasters.”

“One of the reasons they don’t want to answer the questions is it’s very embarrassing,” Grassley added.

In a statement, the Red Cross said that while it has not yet seen the senator’s report, the charity and McGovern have been transparent, and donors’ money was properly spent. The statement says the costs of the projects are “entirely justifiable given the size and complexity of the Haiti program, the scale of the destruction and the challenging and sometimes dangerous conditions of working in Haiti.”

The Red Cross was created by congressional charter more than a century ago, and receives a range of special benefits from the government.

In response to Grassley’s investigation, the Red Cross for the first time posted online a list of specific projects in Haiti. But the accounting on the list, along with other materials provided to Grassley, raises more questions than it answers.

Documents provided by the Red Cross to Grassley show that the charity at times spent large sums of money on management even when it appeared to be simply writing a check to other organizations that were doing actual projects.

In 2010, the Red Cross gave $4.3 million to its sister organization, the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) for disaster preparedness work. On top of the $4.3 million, according to budget figures the charity provided Grassley, the American Red Cross spent another $2 million on its own — to “manage” granting money to another organization.

The IFRC then took out its own overhead and administrative costs before using the money to help Haitians.

When asked why the Red Cross needed $2 million dollars to give money to its sister organization, the group said in its statement the costs were “incurred to ensure accountability, monitoring and evaluation of work performed and ensure our partners meet their contractual requirements.”

The Red Cross added that “Implementing a tracking system by project would take a lot of time and would be a waste of donor dollars that could be better spent on delivering services.”

In 2014, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., of the House Homeland Security Committee asked the Government Accountability Office to examine the Red Cross’ disaster services, in part because of problems in its response to Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

McGovern recently told Grassley’s investigators that the Red Cross “gave [the GAO] everything that they asked for.”

That statement was untrue, according to the report: “This is contrary to the documentary evidence of communications between GAO and [the Red Cross].”

The Red Cross, the committee found, “failed to provide to GAO a substantial volume of requested material.”

The report lists eight examples of things the Red Cross declined to provide to government investigators. They range from descriptions of the charity’s internal oversight processes to interviews with chapter officials involved in the response to Superstorm Sandy.

Grassley’s report found that while the Red Cross couldn’t kill the investigation, it “was able to limit the scope of the GAO’s inquiry."

The Red Cross undercut its own ethics unit

The Red Cross has about 20,000 employees. But its ethics office, which investigates waste, fraud, and abuse, is composed of just three people, according to the Grassley report. That’s down from roughly 65 staffers a decade ago.

One of the three remaining employees, the “compliance coordinator,” does intake of phone calls and does not do investigations. Another, the chief investigator, is based in New York, away from Red Cross headquarters in Washington.

Requests by the head of the unit, Teala Brewer, for more staff have gone unfulfilled by the general counsel, Meltzer, according to the report.

The report concludes that the Office of Investigations, Compliance, and Ethics was left so under-resourced that it is “unable to perform its primary function; namely, to perform investigations, ensure compliance, and maintain ethical standards.”

Update, Jun. 17, 2016: The Red Cross has released a full response to Grassley’s report.

US Official Recognizes Haiti’s Interim Leader for Now

The U.S. State Department's special coordinator for Haiti said Thursday (June 16) that he recognizes Jocelerme Privert as the troubled country's interim president for now even though the divided Parliament is avoiding a vote on potentially extending his expired mandate.

In a phone call with reporters, Kenneth Merten was asked by The Associated Press if the U.S. still recognized Privert as Haiti's provisional leader even though his 120-day mandate ended midnight Tuesday under the terms of a negotiated accord that brought him to power.

Merten responded: "I would have to say I would recognize him as the interim president of Haiti" at this time. But he stressed that Haitian electoral authorities should "act soon to clarify" who the country's provisional leader is moving forward.

The U.S. official's comments are significant because a Haitian opposition coalition insists that Privert is unlawfully holding onto power and is exhorting the international community, Haiti's police force and civil society to view him as entirely illegitimate. The United States is Haiti's largest donor and trading partner and has long had influence here.

At a Thursday press conference at an upscale hotel in Port-au-Prince, opposition leader Evans Paul called on people across the Caribbean country of just over 10 million to join together to demand Privert's departure. Paul is a veteran politician and former prime minister in ex-President Michel Martelly's administration.

But this week's planned street protests by Martelly's Tet Kale political faction failed to materialize in Haiti's capital. While some anti-Privert demonstrations have taken place outside the capital in recent days, the country is largely calm amid this latest phase of politician-stoked discord.

Also failing to materialize for a third straight day was a National Assembly vote on Privert's fate. Lawmakers are tasked with deciding whether to extend Privert's mandate until new presidential elections can be held or pave the way for new interim leader.

Cholzer Chancy, the acting leader of the National Assembly, has demanded that senators and deputies return to Parliament to vote. But many legislators aren't paying any attention to him and are instead continuing with their backroom negotiations and delays.

Meanwhile, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is deeply concerned over Haiti's continuing political uncertainty and called on legislators to urgently decide on a provisional government "that can ensure the completion of the electoral process and a return to full constitutional order without further delays."

In a Wednesday national address, Privert insisted his fragile government had things under control and said he would stay in office until the divided Parliament voted. In February, a majority of members elected him as a short-term interim leader amid suspended elections and another institutional vacuum in the presidency.

"My government is still working. I am available to go to Parliament as soon as they are ready to make a decision," Privert said in the televised address.

Haitian electoral officials recently announced that a new presidential election will be held in October with safeguards to avoid the fraud that marred last year's voting. But Merten said the U.S. was "disappointed" with this decision because impoverished Haiti could have avoided the leadership muddle it finds itself in now if it had stuck to agreed-upon timetables earlier.

"The longer it takes for Haiti to have a democratically elected president, the longer it will take for the United States to consider renewed partnerships to help Haiti confront its mounting economic, climatic, and health challenges," he said.

Dominican Republic: 130,000 more Haitian immigrants are in a situation of uncertainty

More than 130,000 Haitian immigrants, who benefited from the National Plan of Regularization for Foreigners (PNRE), are to be expelled from the Dominican Republic, as the temporary one year permit giving the right to the Haitian nationals to become established on Dominican territory expires on July 18^th, 2016, learned GARR.

The Haitian immigrants affected by this measure will need to settle their status in the main office of  Dominican Immigration before the scheduled date, stated the Major General Rubén Darío Paulino Sem, the General Director of Dominican migration during a recent interview with the Dominican press.

Former temporary license, certificate of non-penal history, medical examination, and a cost of 14,000-peso, are among some of the requirements put upon the Haitian nationals within the framework of the regularization process.

It should be noted that from June 17^th, 2015, the date when the PNRE came to an end, until the second week of June 2016, GARR observed an intensification of repatriations. During this period, 112,625 people were documented crossing the border in inhumane conditions. Among them 69,677 returned on their own accord and 42,948 were repatriated. This does not take into account the thousands of others who were not recorded.

However, due to a lack of real social programs to give to Haitian citizens a desire to stay in Haiti, many haven’t stopped, at their own risk, from going to the nearby territory where they risked being killed or victimized by the Dominicans.

The most recent case occurred on June 13^th, 2016. Kénol Unise. also known as Edson, a 29 –year-old Haitian national from Cerca-la-Souce, received two shots in the right thigh from the weapon of Dominican Sergeant Francisco Antonio Familia. The aggressor, who was assigned to the border post of Bánica in the Dominican province of Elias Piña's province, was quickly transferred to another military post with complete immunity, where he will be protected by his peers.

This regrettable incident arose as the victim went to the Dominican side to go work in a plantation in the zone of Bánica, a route which he made on a daily basis. However, on this day, he was refused access because he did not want to give any money to the Dominican serviceman. The latter shot him after having assaulted him verbally, according to eyewitnesses. His life was saved thanks to his parents, who transported him to a hospital in San Juan. His health is still at risk, advised a member of the Border Network Jeannot Succès (RFJS).

The GARR believes that it's time for the Haitian and Dominican governments to adopt measures to enforce the rights of Haitian workers who must cross the border.

It calls upon the Haitian government to reach an agreement with Dominican authorities to reach a moratorium to avoid the worsening of the migratory crisis if the migrants do not manage to satisfy the requirements of the Dominican authorities within the one month period that they have been granted.

D.R. – HAITI Eviction of those without documents, according to Amnesty: it is a shared irresponsibility

This report titled "Where are we going to live? Migratory flow and Statelessness in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic" published on June 14^th, identifies clearly the negligence with which both governments managed the evictions and the supposedly spontaneous returns.

"One of the gravest consequences of this problem is the eviction from their own country of Dominicans of Haitian origin, in violation of the Dominican Republic’s obligation regarding international law. The Dominican Republic did not make public its protocol of eviction nor its methods," underlined the document

Furthermore, during 10 months, more than two hundred thousand people were left to their fate in camps in the region of Anse-à-Pitres. All this is due to bad planning and a lack of reaction and initiative on behalf of the Haitian authorities. The report also singles out organizations and international donors who gave very little interest to the matter.

Amnesty International made 3 big recommendations to both countries to remedy this situation: modify the Draft agreement on the mechanisms of repatriation, concluded in 1999; conclude a protocol of return; and implement it, to facilitate the legal return to the Dominican Republic of the Dominicans of Haitian origin, and the Haitian migrants expelled in any arbitrary way. Lastly, ratify and apply the Agreement relative to the status of the stateless persons and the Agreement on the reduction of the cases of statelessness.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 7 juillet 2016

 Haitian Farm Workers are Victims of a Deadly Car Accident

A group of Haitian migrant farmers were involved in a deadly accident recently. The school bus transporting the farmers crashed with a truck early last Saturday morning as they were traveling from Georgia to Belle Glade, Florida. The tragedy left five dead and twenty five hospitalized in Wakulla County in Florida. Only the fire gutted frame remained of the school bus carrying the Haitian migrant farmers. The Truck was destroyed as well. All of their legal documents and other property were lost in the accident and they are in great need of support. The United Haitian Students of Florida, Inc. is asking for support and donations for the victims. As of now, the Haitian Cultural Club in Tallahassee has been helping with translation and other needs.

Solar Cooking Pilot Project in Haiti

In 2015, together with Solar Electric Light Fund and Solar Household Energy (SHE), we at One Earth Designs started a project in Tilori, Haiti – a small rural community on the Dominican Republic border. The project’s goal was to bring 25 SolSource solar stoves to Tilori and teach residents how to use them to replace traditional cooking methods.

Tilori, with a population of fewer than 5,000 people, sits on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It was selected for this pilot project because its inhabitants are the principal users of the forest of Sabana Clara–a remnant mix of pine and broadleaf forest. Biodiversity like Sabana Clara’s plays an important role in the restoration of Haiti’s degraded ecosystems.

Haiti suffers from severe deforestation and consequent land erosion. The country has less than 4% forest cover (World Bank); the lack of cover is due in large part to the cutting of trees for cooking fuel. Women in particular suffer from both the environmental and economic effects of woodstove cooking; for example, respiratory illnesses caused by household air pollution, the financial burden of fuel expenditures, and income and educational opportunities lost to long hours spent collecting cooking fuel.

The United States placed Haiti on the blacklist of countries that practice human trafficking for the year 2015, a year when Michel Martelly and Evans Paul were in power.

A news release from the AFP specified that Haiti was included on the blacklist of countries not doing enough to fight against human trafficking and kept Venezuela in this category as well.

However, specified the Agency, this measure refers to the year 2015, when the former president Michel Martelly was in power.

Cuba, which was removed from the "blacklist" last year, was placed in a category called "Special Observation" because the State Department estimates that it is making" considerable efforts "to eliminate forced labor and sexual exploitation throughout the island.

" When we speak about trafficking, we are speaking about the slavery, modern slavery, which still affects 20 million victims forced to go through a hell which no human being should undergo," declared Secretary of State John Kerry, during a press conference to present the report.

U. S. President Barack Obama has 90 days from last Thursday to decide to apply penalties against the countries on the "blacklist," such as freezing non-humanitarian and non-commercial help or denying them loans from multilateral institutions.

Haiti can today be the object of penalties for negligence going back to 2015, when Michel Martelly and Evans Paul were respectively in power as President and Prime Minister.

Some teachers were caught cheating to help students taking the baccalaureate exam (BAC). (Story by the Nouveliste)

A network of teachers committed to affect the results of the baccalaureate exam in favor of certain candidates was dismantled in Gonaïves on June 28^th. Among these swindlers were graders, exam proctors and supervisors. The news was confirmed by educational authorities during a partial update on the progress of the examinations.

Those involved used an app called What’s App to share the answers on the tests. This group includes more than 150 pupils of the Artibonite region. This initiative was created in 2014 by Emmanio Joseph Elysée, a physics teacher from Gonaïves. The network was discovered after Rose-Carline Louissaint, a student taking the baccalaureate exam, was caught using her smartphone

The local head of the Departmental of Education, Ecol Renoit, chastised the attitude of these ill-intentioned teachers. He stated that they are only contributing to the collapse of the Haitian education system. "It is sad to see teachers encouraging mediocrity," regretted Renoit.

The creator of the network admitted that he regretted his dishonest act. He added that he was helped by several other colleagues.

During the first two days of the exam, about ten candidates were eliminated for using cell phones. These pupils were banned from taking the exam for two years. As for the guilty teachers, their educator’s licenses will be revoked.

Tourism: "Saut d’Eau" is a site that should be visited at least once in a lifetime, declared the Huffington Post

The newspaper invited its readers to live the experience of an initiatory and spiritual journey in 50 sacred places. Among them is Saut d’Eau, in Haiti.

It should be remembered that Saut d’Eau is a place for Catholic and Vaudoo followers. Over the years, this waterfall has become more and more of a tourist destination where thousands of visitors come every year.

Haiti at the White House

The images of Haitian artists singing and celebrating Haitian culture at the White House, the seat of the American Presidency, have been for almost a week, ubiquitous on social media. Every photo, every video clip, starts an avalanche of comments where pride competes with patriotism. But how were these ambassadors of Haitian culture, armed simply with their art, their eloquence and their instruments, able to assault this impenetrable renowned fortress?

The credit for this initiative goes to the Haitian Embassy in Washington D.C. which, this year, had formulated the wish that the festivities dedicated to celebrating Caribbean cultural heritage move away from the usual façade symbolism, but instead offer a window on the arts, the ideas and the food of the region. This event also allowed young people from Generation Y (Millennials) to share their vision for the future with the audience.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 12 juillet 2016

 US: No More Financial Help to Conclude Haiti Elections

                                By DAVID MCFADDEN, ASSOCIATED PRESSPORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Jul 7, 2016

The United States has suspended financial assistance to Haiti's electoral authorities as they plan to redo a presidential vote that a special commission found was marred by widespread fraud.

At a Washington press briefing Thursday, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the decision to stop funding a Haitian electoral cycle that began in 2015 did not "signal a reduction in U.S. support for the people or development of Haiti."

He framed the decision as a simple budgeting matter by the U.S., which is Haiti's largest donor. He said Washington did not plan to spend additional taxpayer money for two more voting rounds in the hemisphere's poorest country but would "maintain assistance in other key priority areas."

"We believe it's the sound thing to do, the right thing to do for the people of Haiti in the long-term," Kirby said.

Last year, U.S. taxpayers contributed $33 million for a three-round Haitian electoral cycle that was intended to elect a president, parliament members and numerous other offices. But the presidential runoff was repeatedly scrapped amid deep public suspicions of fraud and violent protests.

It wasn't immediately clear what the absence of U.S. funding would mean for Haiti's revamped Provisional Electoral Council, which organizes balloting in a country where elections are never easy.

But new council chief Leopold Berlanger did not sound concerned by the U.S. decision or a possible ripple effect with other foreign donors amid a lingering political impasse.

"I think if you are a real sovereign country you should get the means to fund your own elections," he told The Associated Press.

Under Berlanger, the council annulled the disputed presidential election and called a new vote, as recommended by a special commission that reported finding what appeared to be significant fraud and professional misconduct.

A total of 27 presidential candidates are now expected to run in the redo vote in October. A runoff would take place in January.

Last month, Kenneth Merten, the U.S. State Department's special coordinator for Haiti, said the U.S. was "disappointed" with the decision to redo the vote because impoverished Haiti could have avoided its leadership muddle if it had stuck to agreed-upon timetables earlier.

Caretaker President Jocelerme Privert's 120-day mandate heading an interim administration expired June 14 but the fragmented parliament is blocking a vote on extending his term or paving the way for a new interim leader.

ELECTIONS WITHOUT MONEY FROM THE WHITE MAN: “YES WE CAN !”

For once, members of the international community aren’t stepping over one other to finance Haiti’s elections. The United States and the European Union have already clearly informed that they will not provide a penny for the elections; other donors such as France, Brazil and Japan still haven’t made any promises, even though the election machine is already in motion.

Despite the lack of external financing to organize the elections, the Haitian leaders in power are not panicking. The provisional president is even confident that the elections will take place even without funds from the international community. Since July 1^st , Jocelerme Privert has known that one of the main investors in the elections, the United States, would not be providing any funds this time. "We going to put everything in place so that these elections are financed by domestic resources, and this in spite of our limited means and the volume of debts inherited from the Martelly administration,” Privert told Le Nouveliste last Monday in an exclusive interview.

Of the 55 million dollars that it will cost to organize the elections, the government said that it had already 30 millions, and needs only a little more than 15 millions.

At the level of the Haitian private sector, people think that the country should take advantage of this situation to free itself from its dependence on the international community to organize the elections. Several presidential candidates interviewed by Le Nouvellise, think that the United States, unintentionally, offered the country a possibility of showing that it can organize its own elections. It is an act of national sovereignty.

It should be noted, that according to The Center for Economic and Policy Research, an American watchdog group, out of the $33 million the United States contributed for the electoral process in Haiti in 2015, $30.45 million were used to finance the UNOPS, the UNDP, the OEA, the IFES, and the NDI. The American money was spent in the name of Haiti but not in Haiti, nor for Haiti during the last elections, estimated the group.

In the meantime, the Provisional Electoral Counsel is progressing in the preparations to organize the presidential election as well as senatorial elections. The first round is scheduled for October 9^th.

BROWARD COUNTY

JULY 1, 2016 8:52 PM

South Florida man arrested on charges of impregnating a 10-year-old

MIAMI HERALD

BY ALEX HARRIS

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As soon as his flight from Haiti landed in Miami, a 47-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of impregnating a 10-year-old.

Raymond Vincent was “expelled from Haiti” by the Haitian government, wrote Detective Tracy Figone, spokeswoman for the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, in an email. He was arrested Friday on a Fort Lauderdale arrest warrant. He was charged with sexual battery on a child under 12 and lewd lascivious conduct.

Investigators told Miami Herald news partner CBS4 Vincent was a family friend of the young girl, who showed up to a hospital in February complaining of stomach pains. She was pregnant.

Meanwhile, police said, Vincent fled to Haiti. U.S. Marshals flew to Port-au-Prince and brought him back to Fort Lauderdale detectives.

He was found not guilty on four counts of child molestation in 2012, records show. At the time, Local10 reported, he was a youth pastor at a Pompano Beach church. Investigators told the station Vincent lured the young girl inside his home with food, and the girl said he’d molested her twice in 2011 as well.

Alex Harris: 305-376-5005, @harrisalexc

VISIT IN HAITI OF A DELEGATION FROM THE COAHUALA STATE OF MEXICO

On Thursday, July 7^th, a delegation from Coahuila, one of Mexico’s 32 states, arrived in Port-au-Prince, with the aim of promoting economic, cultural relations and tourism between Mexico and Haiti. The delegation met Jessy C. Petit-Frère, Minister of Trade and Industry, Didier Hyppolyte, Minister of Tourism and Creative Industries, Latin-Americans ambassadors, chambers of commerce members and entrepreneurs.

José Antonio Gutiérrez Jardón, Leader of the delegation and Secretary of Economic development, Competitiveness and Tourism of the State of Coahuila, invited the Minister of Trade as well as the Haitian private sector to participate in the "ALADI Expo," a Latin American event to increase and strengthen the trade in the region. It will take place from October 19^th to 21^st, in Coahuila, Mexico.

The sectors which participate in the ALADI Expo are: food and drinks, car parts, leather and, pharmaceutical products, produced by the chemical and plastic industry, textiles, clothes, shoes, iron or steel articles and electrical equipment. The ALADI Expo Mexico 2016 is an opportunity for Haitian entrepreneurs and industrialists to strengthen the diversity of their economic relations.

The Horror of Zika in Haiti

Journal Star - A wonderful friend of ours, Karen Bultje, who is a missionary in Haiti, has been caring for a young man named Claudy in her home for several days. Claudy lives in the Kenscoff mountains above Port-au-Prince. He recently became ill with a high fever, rash, and severe pain. He also began having weakness in his legs which prevented him from walking. His mother and family carried him down the mountains and he went by motorcycle taxi and tap-taps to Karen’s home in Port.

Karen and her nursing staff took Claudy to a local hospital where he was examined but he was sent back to Karen’s home. They said there was nothing they could do for Claudy. The family is not able to pay for care in any local private hospital in Port and the public hospitals are on strike.

The worry tonight is that Claudy has Zika virus (not proven yet) with a neurologic complication of Zika called Guillain-Barré. Guillain-Barré is an autoimmune disease that attacks the nerves exiting the spine which can cause weakness and numbness in the legs. If the paralysis progresses it can paralyze the diaphragm and make breathing impossible. Claudy is still breathing ok but we don’t know for how much longer. (Zika most likely causes microcephaly too which is a neurologic disaster for the newborn.)

Tonight Karen’s staff took Claudy to another hospital in Port-au-Prince. This hospital has two ventilators and both are being used. So Claudy is being observed in triage and if his breathing becomes difficult, his trachea will be intubated and he will be manually bagged to keep him alive.

Karen is searching for a helicopter to transport him to the new hospital in Mirebalais which is about two hours by road from here. However, it is dark now and nothing can happen until morning regarding transport.

Scientists believe Zika has been in Haiti since 2014—long before it was obvious that Zika was spreading fast in Brazil. Officially no cases of Zika were reported in Haiti until January 2016. Since then there have been more than 2,600 cases of Zika reported here. This number underestimates the true cases for many reasons. (Most people infected with Zika are not ill, hospitals in Haiti often don’t test for Zika, and patients have no money to pay for the test in the first place.)

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 19 juillet 2016

 Murder of three deaf women in Haiti must be a starting point for change

On Saturday 11 June government ministers and campaigners attended the funeral of three female street vendors, laid to rest in sturdy white coffins laden with flowers, with more than 2,000 people in attendance. Their brutal murders had shocked a country.

Jesula Gelin, a mother of six, Vanessa Previl and Monique Vincent were all deaf and worked in Haiti’s capital. That is itself was notable – they were economically independent and lived away from their families in a deaf community in Leveque, a village about an hour from the city.

On 18 March they had spent the morning in Port-au-Prince buying business supplies and visiting their families. They set off home in the early afternoon, leaving plenty of time to get back before dark on a normal day. However, a bridge had collapsed on Route Nine, one of the main thoroughfares, bringing traffic to a standstill. “It was on the radio, TV, so everybody knew to avoid those areas,” says Nicole Phillips, a lawyer who is representing the women’s families. “But if you’re deaf, you’re not going to benefit from any of that. They had no idea that the bridge had collapsed.”

The women had been travelling on a tap tap – the privately run Jeeps that are the equivalent of buses in Haiti. But at some point, in the heavily congested traffic, they got off the tap tap to continue their journey on foot. “They got exhausted,” says Phillips. “And then late at night, we don’t know what time, they stopped off in one of the victim’s relative’s house."

The house was owned by a distant relative. “She had been there before, by car it’s just 20 minutes from where she lives,” says Phillips. “She and the two other ladies went there to spend the night.”

Reports of what happened next are from two women who have been arrested in connection with the triple murder. They lived at the house and say that when the three deaf women arrived they were frightened and thought that they were lougawou. In Haitian mythology, lougawou or lougarou are evil spirits who come out at night and cause mischief such as killing your goats or eating your dog. They are something to be feared. Disabled people are sometimes labelled bad spirits. “They think that they are a different creature of god,” says Phillips. “That helps them justify the stigma of disabled people. You can tell yourself this [that they are different] and feel more justified morally.”

Violence against women with disabilities is believed to be two or three times higher than against non-disabled women

The sequence of events is not entirely clear, but at some point between 8pm and midnight the women were tortured and brutally murdered. Phillips has seen photographs of the bodies with burn marks and machete cuts. The two women who were in the house and a male accomplice have been arrested in connection with the murder. But the police have not captured another main suspect, a distant relative of one of the victims. 

“Violence against women with disabilities is believed to be two or three times higher than against non-disabled women,” says Lisa Adams, programme director of the US-based Disability Rights Fund, which works in Haiti. “Disability, gender and sexuality compound to present a lot of cultural myths and stereotypes about women with disabilities – ranging from infantilising them to making them hyper sexual. I think that has a lot to do with the violence experienced by women with disabilities in Haiti – these three women in particular.”

The murders have brought a furious response from disability rights, women’s rights and human rights campaigners. “This has brought Haiti’s disability rights activists together,” says Phillips. “It has galvanised the community.” On 1 April hundreds of people marched in Port-au-Prince to demand justice for the three murdered women, and several other demonstrations around the country followed, including a march on 9 June in Cabaret near where they were killed.

A march on 9 June from the civil court in Cabaret to the place where the bodies of the women were found. Photograph: Wesley Gedeon/Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti

Disabled people in Haiti are discriminated against in multiple ways. For example, only 5% of children with disabilities are in school, according to a report by the Haitian state submitted in the report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. And people with disabilities complain that the police don’t take them seriously when they report crimes and that they are taunted in public as “cocobe” (useless).

“Haiti is a model for exclusion,” says Michel Pean, who was secretary of state for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in Haiti from 2007-11 and is blind himself. “But it’s also a good example of the fight for inclusion of people with disabilities within society.” Pean says that 1 million out of Haiti’s 10 million people have a disability. Since the earthquake in 2010, there are more people with disabilities and they have become more visible.

We want to transform this very negative event into something positive

Michel Pean

But strong civil society groups have driven successes for disability rights campaigners over the past 15 years, says Pean. “The idea to have a secretary of state dedicated to people with disabilities came from civil society. The same with the idea to have proper legislation came from civil society. Disability rights civil society is very active.”

And those activists are determined to seize this moment of tragedy and force the government to act. “We want to transform this very negative event into something positive,” says Pean. “Something which would ensure that people with disabilities are respected, and their rights are respected. Their right to education, their right to access to health, in other words, their right to live, with dignity.”

In response to the murders, campaigners are calling for the government to include the rights of women with disabilities into a national gender equality plan. The government has not replied to that petition yet, but it did fund the women’s funeral and ministers insist they are doing all they can to ensure that justice is done. 

“For me, as a feminist activist,” says Nadine Anilus, a member of the Ministry of Women’s cabinet, “we condemn this criminal act and call the state authorities to take the necessary steps to make justice and reparation to the family of three women. Every Haitian citizen must play their part to improve the situation of people with disabilities. We are calling for a big national campaign.”

She adds that Haiti needs to ensure national accidents are communicated in a way that is accessible for people with disabilities and that more financial resources are needed for organisations working on these issues.

Pean is clear that it will take a long time before people with disabilities are treated equally in the country. “For things to actually change, mentalities as well, takes a long process,” he says. “One of the things that has to change is the economic situation in Haiti. Also, it’s essential that we have political stability. These are necessary conditions to enable us to reach true inclusion.”

Translation by Carole Villiers.