AMERICA/HAITI - Violence against women: human rights activists complain about attacks by the UN mission

Friday, 27 November 2020 violence   social situation   human rights   local churches  

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Port au Prince (Agenzia Fides) - On the occasion of World Day against violence on women, the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace of the Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince, together with the Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (PAPDA), the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights and other social organizations for human rights, have launched a campaign in favor of women and children who have suffered violence by soldiers of MINUSTAH (Mission des Nations Unies pour la Stabilization en Haiti) .
According to the note sent to Fides, during a conference held on November 23, Camille Charlemers, one of the leaders of PAPDA, announced a series of activities from November 25 to December 10 in various cities throughout the country.
According to Charlemers, acts against the Haitian people cannot go unpunished. In this context, she accuses the United Nations of helping to strengthen the culture of impunity in Haiti.
Criticisms regarding the UN Mission in Haiti go back many years. On 11 September 2014, PAPDA, which brings together almost all the social movements present in Haiti, had presented a report in which the intervention of the then General Secretary of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, was questioned in the UN Security Council on the political and institutional situation in Haiti (see Fides, 23/9/2014).
Meanwhile, international organizations are those who, in practice, intervene to report the true situation of this country and ask for help. In a report published this November 2020 on rising world hunger rates, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) call for urgent action to avoid worsening food insecurity in Haiti.
The report estimates that 4 million people (40% of the population) in Haiti are in a state of food insecurity and that the situation could worsen between March and June 2021.
In addition to extreme weather conditions, socio-political crises, the climate of insecurity, the socio-economic impact of Covid-19 are among the main factors that have contributed to the worsening of food insecurity in the country, explains FAO representative in Haiti, José Luis Fernández. (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 27/11/2020)


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