Help Haiti Rebuild with Rights

Three years after the most devastating natural disaster in Haitian history, the earthquake that killed over 300,000 people on January 12th, 2010, Haitians are still struggling to rebuild a semblance of normalcy in their daily lives. Despite the $6.34 billion in humanitarian and recovery funding from the international community that supposedly has already been disbursed in Haiti, reconstruction efforts still appear painfully slow in the eyes of many Haitians. President of the Catholic NGO Caritas Haiti, Pierre André Dumas, called upon all sectors of the country to unite in this time of disillusionment with shortcomings of reconstruction efforts:

"The momentum that followed the earthquake has faded. Much of the promises have not been kept. There is a sense of disappointment among the people: a large part of the population still lives in tents ... We need greater political will, national dialogue and love for this country. We must put aside individual interests."

The earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12 was devastating. As with most crises, women and girls were among both the most vulnerable and the most overlooked. Within the first week, reports of sexual violence emerged, as did stories of women and girls struggling to access assistance and living in crowded and unsafe camps.

The location of the disaster in a major urban capital in a country with a recent history of social and political upheaval, as well as poorly functioning institutions, presented the humanitarian community with the challenge of responding to a multi-layered emergency of almost unprecedented scale and complexity. Yet while many aspects of this disaster were unique, much of the failure to appropriately respond to the protection concerns of women and girls resulted from known, chronic weaknesses in the system of emergency response.

Though gains have been made in raising the profile of gender issues in recent years, humanitarian actors still struggle to change the way that they coordinate, design, deliver and monitor assistance to ensure that women and girls are not rendered more vulnerable in the process. The humanitarian community continues to see women’s protection as a second-tier concern in crises, particularly natural disasters, and is slow to address gender-based violence (GBV) at the onset of an emergency.

This paper examines some of the successes and failures of the response to the protection concerns of women and girls following the Haiti earthquake and offers recommendations for action. While natural disasters increase risks for women and girls, violence, abuse and exploitation are not inevitable in such crises. By investing in early and robust action, women and girls can be made safer, violence prevented, and a solid foundation built for women’s and girls’ empowerment post-crisis.

Summary by Elizabeth Bellardo

Read the Policy Paper here

In recent events in the United States, Haitian-American communities along with members of congress are pushing to increase the number of visas allotted to Haitians who have already been approved for but have yet to be given a visa so they can join their family members. The issue with speed of visa is due to the limit put on number of visas allowed every year. Some hopeful migrants wait up to a decade, after being approved, to receive their visa. “As a new Haitian government takes shape, and as the country still grapples with cholera and post-earthquake reconstruction, additional help is needed, " reports the office of Democrat representative Frederica Wilson. Haiti was recently added to a new list of countries now able to get working visas which would allow Haitians to come legally as agricultural and seasonal workers. This would mean an increase in visas for those who are extra workers in hotels for vacation season or on farms when crops are ready to be harvested, after these seasons were over they would return to Haiti or country or origin.

Read more about visas for Haitian workers here

Haiti has been an impoverished country for decades but they dove into deeper economic turmoil after the 2010 earthquake. The poverty and disaster has furthered the pre-earthquake issue of land ownership and the lack of policy on the issue. According to a report by Action Aid only 70% of the land is used for farming but rarely do these farmers own the land they are growing on, most are assumed as renters or are inhabiting other's land illegally. The result has been in the spontaneous development of tent communities that are now prominent for several displaced communities whose homes were destroyed as a result of the earthquake. Meanwhile those who try to purchase homes often end up with conflicting ownerships, due to lack of government communication.

While article 36 of the Haitian Constitution secures all Haitian’s right to a home  the uneven distribution of land in Haiti has caused major chaos and an overflow of homeless. Despite their President Michel Martelly’s goal of re-branding Haiti’s image, the country is still seen as one of the poorest and most dangerous countries in the western hemisphere. This image was not only aggravated by the earthquake but also by the cholera outbreak which has left nearly 5,000 Haitians dead. The existence of the tent communities is just one symptom of larger systemic issues within the current Haitian government.

Read the full report by Action Aid on Land and Housing Rights here

February 11, 2011

Honorable Janet Napolitano
Secretary of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528

Dear Madam Secretary: 

As faith-based and humanitarian organizations, we write to express our opposition to the
Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) recent decision to resume deportations to Haiti.  One
week after the United States deported 27 Haitians, deportee Wildrick Guerrier has died. After being
placed in a Haitian jail, Guerrier, 34, a long-time U.S. resident, began to suffer from cholera-like
symptoms.  He died shortly thereafter, leaving family in the U.S. to mourn his loss.  At least one
other Haitian detainee shows similar symptoms and had to be transferred to an already overburdened medical center for treatment.

The death of Mr. Guerrier proved an unfortunate point that humanitarian and faith-based
organizations had raised with DHS before the January 20 deportation was executed:  That
deportations to Haiti at this time may amount to a death sentence, as Haiti is wholly unprepared to
absorb the population and guarantee the protection of their human rights.  We are alarmed to hear
that even following this tragedy, DHS is planning to deport another group of Haitians, perhaps as
early as this week.  Now is not the time to resume deportations to Haiti, nor would it be morally or
politically appropriate to do so in the foreseeable future.  To continue deportations in the face of
such conditions would represent a knowing disregard for the life and dignity of the Haitians
scheduled for deportation.  

We ask that you cease these deportations immediately.

Many of our organizations had expressed our concerns about the resumption of deportations of
Haitians at a time when Haiti is still struggling to recover from a devastating earthquake.  Mr.
Guerrier’s untimely death proves that Haiti is unable to provide for the safe and dignified
reintegration of deportees. Not only are the lives of deported Haitians at risk, deportations could
divert critical resources from Haiti’s recovery and reconstruction effort.

Of the 27 Haitians already deported and another 300 who await deportation, there are a significant
number with low-level, non-violent criminal convictions who had already been released and had
been living in the community without incident for years.  Others have compelling humanitarian
situations, including serious medical conditions or potential claims for immigration relief.

DHS has stated that it intends to deport 700 Haitians by October.  Yet, a cholera outbreak has
claimed over 3,600 lives and infected more than 400,000.  Reconstruction continues at a slow pace,
with hundreds of thousands still living in tent cities.  To compound these issues, Haiti’s jails, in which the Haitian government routinely holds deportees and which are notorious for the inhumane
treatment of detainees, are now rife with cholera.  

In addition to immediately halting all deportations, the United States can take additional steps to
reiterate its commitment to help Haiti recover.  This would include:
1) A re-designation of TPS for Haiti so that Haitians who entered the U.S. after the earthquake
may access its benefits; 
2) Humanitarian parole for immediate family members of Haitians evacuated to the United
States for medical purposes after the earthquake; and 
3) The implementation of a family reunification parole program that would benefit 55,000
Haitians with approved family petitions into the United States as they wait for their priority
dates to become current.  
We believe that these measures would alleviate an otherwise inevitable worsening of the social and
economic strains on the stricken nation, facilitate the reunification of Haitian families, and ensure
that sorely-needed remittances flow to the country.  The adoption of these measures would also
send an important signal to the Haitian people that the United States remains committed to their
long-term welfare.

Sincerely,

African American Ministers In Action (AAMIA)
American Jewish Committee
American Jewish World Service
Church World Service
Disciples Justice Action Network (Disciples of Christ)
The Episcopal Church
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Gender Action
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Washington Office
Mennonite Church USA
Muslim Public Affairs Council 
The National Advocacy Center Sisters of the Good Shepherd
NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Partners In Health
Refugees International
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries
United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society
UNITED SIKHS
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
World Relief

Cc: Honorable Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State
 Melody Barnes, Director, Domestic Policy Council
Denis McDonough, Deputy National Security Advisor, National Security Council John Morton, Director, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Alejandro Mayorkas, Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service

• To look at the letter in original format click here

Back in October I was lucky enough to see Sonia Pierre, a longtime activist for Dominicans of Haitian descent, speak at what would be one of her last public events before her death the following month. Like the people she spent her life defending, Sonia was born on a batey to Haitian parents who migrated to the Dominican Republic in search of better jobs. Bateys are Dominican sugar plantations where Haitian migrant workers and their offspring face appalling working conditions and live in poverty, marginalized from the rest of Dominican society.

One year ago, Haiti was ravaged by a devastating earthquake that killed more than 230,000 people and destroyed the homes and families of millions more. Since then, you and many others have stepped forward to give and advocate for relief funding, push for temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants in the U.S., and persuade the IMF to drop Haiti’s $268 million debt once and for all.  But while the support of the international community has saved many lives, a year later, conditions in Haiti are still perilous, with more than 3,400 people dead from a cholera outbreak, most of the rubble not cleared, and still close to a million people left without permanent housing.

Click here to ask our government to stand by the Haitian people as they rebuild their country and their lives.

"As Haitians prepare for the first anniversary of the earthquake, close to one million people are reportedly still displaced. Less than 5 percent of the rubble has been cleared, only 15 percent of the temporary housing that is needed has been built and relatively few permanent water and sanitation facilities have been constructed," concludes Oxfam in a hard-hitting report on the world’s response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

On October 6, nearly 10 months after the devastating earthquake tore through Haiti, Refugees International (RI) released the report “Haiti: Still Trapped in the Emergency Phase” detailing the continuing crisis. “Action is urgently needed to protect the basic human rights of people displaced by the earthquake,” RI reported. “Living in squalid, overcrowded and spontaneous camps for a prolonged period has led to aggravated levels of violence and appalling standards of living.”