"They Forgot about Us!" Gender and Haiti's IDP Camps, Interview and Translation
- Like 1.7 million people, the women interviewed were made homeless by the earthquake.
- About 400,000 families lived in camps for internally displaced persons, one of almost 1,300 camps in the country and 860 in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.
- At best, almost 40 percent of camps had no access to water, fewer than a fifth had a clinic and 30 percent had no toilet.
- KOFAVIV reported 230 incidences of rape in 15 camps, and Médecins Sans Frontières reported 68 cases of rape in one of its clinics in April.
- Camp residents describe crowding, such as 6,800 people in tents eight inches apart in a football field in Solino.
The piece combines testimony from women activists featured in the film Poto Mitan with Mark Schuller's commentary on camps for internally displaced persons after the January 2010 earthquake. The women describe losing their homes, moving between camps and the lack of aid in camps they say were forgotten. The text cites that 1.7 million people were made homeless, that 400,000 families lived in camps, and that there were almost 1,300 camps in the country.
It reports that about 40 percent of camps at best lacked access to water and 30 percent had no toilet. It also reports 230 incidences of rape in 15 camps documented by the women's organization KOFAVIV, and links the rise in violence toward women to proximity, lack of privacy and ineffective response.
How to cite
Meridians, 2011, "They Forgot about Us!" Gender and Haiti's IDP Camps, Interview and Translation, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/meridians.11.1.149
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- Meridians