« When organizations bring kits, these men ask us for sex to give them to us, » a resident of the Marie-Jeanne High School camp told AyiboPost
Gangs infiltrate several temporary shelters in Port-au-Prince to commit rape and hold the distribution of food aid hostage, half a dozen victims and the head of a local humanitarian institution told AyiboPost.
« When organizations bring kits, these men ask us for sex to give them to us, » a resident of the Marie-Jeanne High School camp located at 1ère Impasse Lavaud in Port-au-Prince.
Guerda Prévilon, Executive Director of the Youth Development Initiative (IDEJEN), has already worked at this site, which has been in operation since March 2024. She reveals to AyiboPost that she has received many complaints from women victims.
« In general, those who refuse to sleep with the officials have to fight to get their kits, » says Prévilon.
Read also: May 10: the women of Gressier tell of a dark evening
Another 21-year-old woman we met at the center reported that she had gone to the dedicated office to pick up a kit that an organization had come to bring to the camp.
« The committee members who were doing the distribution refused to give me mine for no reason, she says. I wanted to protest by raising my voice, but one of them grabbed me by the throat and then pushed me before throwing me out. »
The twenty-year-old believes that she was brutalized because she never accepted the men’s advances.
« In general, those who refuse to sleep with the officials have to fight to get their kits »
– Guerda Prévilon
Two other women, visibly in their fifties, corroborate the young woman’s statements, because they are also commonly abused.
« When this happens to us, says one of them, they say we’re not that old. »
A woman observes the arrival of the journalist at the camp in the Lycée Marie-Jeanne in July 2024.
These individuals exercise tight control over the camp.
On International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day, IDEJEN had to take about a hundred victims out of the camp to distribute money and kits.
This move was necessary, according to Prévilon, to ensure that the women received help.
Read also: Fleeing insecurity in P-au-P, abused children in the south
Most of the displaced people who refuse to engage in sex in order to benefit from the kits sent to the camp are forced to buy them.
According to testimonies collected on the spot, members of the committee reserve a substantial part of the aid for sales operations.
Depending on the product, prices vary between 750 and 1,000 gourdes. You also need 15 gourdes to be allowed to use the toilets.
A lady sells coal in the Lycée Marie-Jeanne camp.
According to the United Nations, gang violence has displaced 578,000 people internally between March and June 2024. Most of the victims of violence are taking refuge in 96 sites in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince. The vast majority of these sites lack a formal management mechanism.
« For example, the gang leaders in the lower part of Delmas plan the spaces where people can take refuge in advance after chasing them out of their homes themselves, » says Guerda Prévilon of IDEJEN.
It is also the gangs that install the members of the camp management committees « so that they have unilateral control over all incoming and outgoing traffic, especially with regard to the various humanitarian services, » Prévilon continues.
Read also: P-au-P cemetery: displaced people from Carrefour-Feuilles cohabit with the dead
Several victim support structures are forced to negotiate with gang leaders in order to assist the displaced.
The Saint-Joseph, La Saline and Cité Soleil camps are affected by this problem, aaccording to IDEJEN officials met by AyiboPost.
In this context, the sexual abuse of women and children is on the rise.
Pierre Richard Jean-Baptiste, a former resident of the commune of Carrefour-Feuilles, says he abandoned the Dumerlin camp for this reason. In addition to the members of the committee, « several people who were simple civilians joined the armed groups. I didn’t feel safe anymore, » says Jean-Baptiste.
The man ended up abandoning this camp for the Lycée Marie-Jeanne (LMJ) located at 1ère Impasse Lavaud, in Port-au-Prince.
There, the committee in place is not accused of having ties to gang members, but it is just as decried.
Two women are conversing in a temporary shelter at the Lycée Marie-Jeanne.
Jean-Baptiste’s wife luckily found shelter with relatives.
« It’s hard to live apart from her, says the man. But to come here with my wife would be to bring these sexual predators one more concubine. »
Cases of statutory rape continue to pile up.
Men on the committee, but also those of the Lycée Marie-Jeanne camp in general, have relationships with teenage girls, according to IDEJEN and witnesses.
When questioned on the subject, the president of the site, Steve Fleuranfils, denies everything. « There are no cases of sexual violence here, he says. The members of the committee are also victims. We have come together to better structure ourselves and manage the camp. »
Aid workers interviewed by AyiboPost advocate for local and international NGOs to be better organized, as well as the recovery of gang-controlled territories, to enable the displaced to return home.
Cover image: A woman buries her face in her bodice at the Lycée Marie-Jeanne camp. | © Jean Feguens Regala/AyiboPost
Watch this AyiboPost report on the situation of women in the camps in Port-au-Prince:
Keep in touch with AyiboPost via:
► Our Telegram channel : click here
► Our WhatsApp channel : click here
► Our CommunityWhatsApp:click here
Comments