Human rights organisation Amnesty International is calling on the
Haitian government to do more to tackle the widespread rape of girls,
often by gangs of armed men. Mary Jane spent two years in jail for
killing a man who raped her
Amnesty says 55% of the 105 rapes reported so far this year were of
girls aged under 18.
In August, the BBC's Xanthe Hinchey visited Haiti where one young woman
told her story of being raped.
Mary Jane is a shy and skinny 16-year-old.
She speaks quickly and so quietly that you almost have to stop breathing to
hear her speak.
She stares straight ahead when she tells me what happened to her two years
ago.
"I was on my way to buy water for my mother when a man from my neighbourhood
grabbed me and said he would rape me," she says.
"As soon as he said that I ran. But he ran after me and trapped me in a
corridor. Rape has been used as a political weapon in this country since
1986 Myriam Merlet Head of the Ministry of Women
|
|
 |
| A dangerous criminal, as defined by Canada, deported to his
native Haiti on November 25, 2008, after a long life of odious
crimes, by the former nation government. For hard questions about
rapes in Haiti, Haiti Minister of
Justice? |
|
|
"After he raped me he didn't want to let me go. He hit me. But I was holding
a pair of scissors that I had been using to make some T-shirts so I pushed
them into his stomach and I ran home," she says.
The man died.
Mary Jane says that same night the other members from the man's gang then
tried to kill her and burned down her family's home. The next day she was
arrested and imprisoned for two years in an adult jail.
It was not Mary Jane's first encounter with violence. Her attacker had been
part of a neighbourhood gang who had raped her when she was 12 years old.
"It was at night on Christmas Eve and right there, in the street, these men
grabbed me and all three raped me."
Two years ago, the United Nations in Haiti acknowledged widespread rape in
the vast slums in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. Almost half of the
young women in conflict-zone slums have been raped
The UN said that almost half of the girls and young women, living in
conflict-zone slums, like Cite Soleil and Martissant, had been raped.
But Amnesty says that not enough has been done to stamp out widespread rape
which is on the rise again.
Rape was only made a criminal offence in Haiti in 2005. Before then judges
would negotiate a sum of money to be paid to the victim's family.
But despite the new law, the prosecution rate for rape remains extremely
low.
One of the chief tasks of Minustah, the UN peacekeeping and stabilisation
mission sent to Haiti four years ago, is to help the Haitian government to
reform the country's weak justice and penal system.
Hedi Annabi, head of the United Nations mission in Haiti, says that about
90% of the people in prisons have not been sentenced.
"It's important to get those who are accused of serious crimes before a
court and get them sentenced so the message starts spreading that immunity
is no longer assured," he says. Street gangs have the full power to
terrorise the population as they wish Myriam Merlet Head of the Ministry of
Women
"But success is never immediate when you work on these difficult problems."
Mary Jane is angry that there is no justice in Haiti.
"I shouldn't have been sent to jail because I was a victim several times,"
she says.
"The gang burnt down my house, they beat me and they raped me."
Myriam Merlet, who heads the government's Ministry of Women, blames the high
rate of rape in Haiti's slums on the political turmoil that has stained the
country since the Duvalier family dictatorship was ousted in the mid-1980s.
"Rape has been used as a political weapon in this country since 1986. The
soldiers in the army used rape to frighten people. The Chimeres (mainly
pro-Aristide gangs) used rape to control the population," she says. When I
go out I have to keep watching. I have to keep watching all the time Mary
Jane
"Now the street gangs in the slums use rape as a powerful weapon of war."
She also says that there is a "state absence" in the slums and the gangs
have "full power to terrorise the population as they wish".
But until drastic action is taken, Mary Jane - like so many other girls in
Haiti - will have to continue to live in daily fear of being raped.
"I don't feel that I am living now because if someone is not free, that
person will never feel good," she says.
"I want to live with my mother but the gang could find me and hurt me.
"When I go out I have to keep watching. I have to keep watching all the
time."
Mary Jane's name has been changed to protect her identity
Published Thursday, November 27, 2008.
Must
learnedly read, too; in part, of intellectual rigor
R