Tous droits réservés. Republié avec l'autorisation du·de la détenteur·rice du droit d'auteur et de l'éditeur·rice, Le Nouvelliste.

This gender assessment was requested by USAID Mission in Haiti for their country strategy. The assessment aims to identify how USAID programs may affect or be affected by gender relations and certain gender-based limitations. This document represents a review of research and program documents as well as interviews with USAID staff and partners that identifies and assess gender relations and gender-based constraints that impact USAID programs. It specifically considers the impact of gender relations on program results and the impact of the program on the relative status of men and women.

While gender-based violence is not a new phenomenon in Haiti, the aftermath of the January 12, 2010 earthquake further exposed the vulnerability of Haitian women and girls to gender-based violence and the limited possibilities for women to evince a judicial response to gender-specific violations of the law. Drawing from the experiences of Haitian lawyers and women’s rights advocates, this paper will examine women’s barriers to accessing justice in Haiti by drawing on actual examples of gender-based violence at each step of the investigatory process under the Haitian justice system.

This assessment examines gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE), its advances and gaps, and how USAID and other donor programming have addressed them. It concentrates on four key focus areas: 1) food and economic security; 2) basic services (health and education); 3) democracy and governance; and 4) water, sanitation, and hygiene, with climate change and disaster risk reduction. It also addresses crosscutting themes, including governance and the safety and security of women, girls, LGBTI, and persons with disabilities (PWD).

In this ethnographic montage, the author revisits the development of her feminist consciousness as a young Haitian teen in the US after migration. She interprets her struggles with her parents’ patriarchal authority. Her responses to this authority serve to highlight the significance of self-definition as a primary tenant of US Black Feminism. She demonstrates how tales of experimental feminist anthropologists whose ethnographic storytelling crosses the boundaries of the personal and the social.

This interview between Chantelle F. Verna and Paulette Poujol Oriol discusses the history of Haiti’s first feminist group The Ligue Feminine d’Action Sociale and the past and ongoing struggles women have had to face. Poujol Oriol shared her understanding of Ligue’s significance for the evolution of women’s rights in Haiti and her recollections about the group’s major accomplishments. When describing this history, she spoke of moments that made her proud as well as those that left her frustrated.

This article unveils how Vodou and the iconography of the two main Ezilis, Ezili Danto and Ezili Freda, from a cultural standpoint informs audiences about the political position of Haitian women in the past and present. White aims not only to provide a literary analysis but also a gendered political examination. She analyses why the specific imagery of each Ezili demonstrates her ideals, given that the chromolithographs have come to represent Iwa everywhere, where chosen after the Vodou mythology had a chance to embed itself.

This report provides a gender profile of conflict in Haiti from the 1950’s up to 2004. Beginning in 1956 during the Duvalier regime, this report outlines the countless ways in which women and children in Haiti have continued to suffer from chronic political unrest. The report describes political, humanitarian, and economic problems that have impacted the lives of many women and children such as political rapes under the Duvalier regime or the HIV/AIDS epidemic that is ongoing.

This report provides a brief explanation of the cultural norms, relevant history, and recent events that have shaped Haiti’s criminal system and its response to gender-based violence. It describes the international human rights instruments adopted or joined by Haiti which mandate that countries secure certain rights to victims of sexual violence and bind Haiti to act on behalf of these victims.

Haiti is prone to natural disasters of many kinds: cyclones, tropical storms, landslides, floods and earthquakes. In less than twelve years, two earthquakes have shaken the country, bringing enormous damage in human life and losses of all kinds. The country had yet to recover from the aftermath of the first 7.0-magnitude earthquake in 2010 when, on 14 August 2021 a second of magnitude 7.2 struck the south of the country where the majority of the affected municipal districts are remote and difficult to access.