NY Times Suggests It’s Pointless to Report Rape in Haiti, Ignoring Serious Efforts to Protect Women
NY Times Suggests It’s Pointless to Report Rape in Haiti, Ignoring Serious Efforts to Protect Women
What is the point of doing any work in Haiti? After all, the country is a mess and it’s hard to shake that habit. And its reputation.
Athena Kolbe and Robert Muggah’s December 9 New York Times op-ed illustrates in detail the post-rape reality for a survivor of sexual violence in Haiti - a series of misfortunes that encapsulate all of Haiti’s failings in responding to rape. Yet the authors make no mention of the hard work of many groups that have been trying to improve the country’s reputation.
The story is so vivid and real that I can imagine Wendy recounting it to me and my former colleagues at the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) office in Port-au-Prince. Yet, it does Haiti a disservice by focusing on the negative, failing to mention the numerous efforts to combat rape in Haiti, and the numerous successes, since the earthquake. As the work of my colleagues at BAI and collaborators at women’s grassroots organizations like KOFAVIV (see also MADRE) and FAVILEK demonstrates every week, the story does not have to play out that way.
Yes, Kolbe and Muggah paint an accurate picture, but it’s not the whole picture. This year was an extraordinary year for the gender-based violence world in Haiti, though there is still much work to be done. For example, after over a year, and in some cases two years, of kicking around in the justice system, four of BAI’s cases went to trial in this past summer’s court session. The rape survivor prevailed in all four cases, and the perpetrator was sentenced to the maximum prescribed punishment in three of the four cases.