International Religious Freedom Report 2020: Haiti

The Haiti chapter of the United States Department of State's International Religious Freedom Report for calendar year 2020. It follows the series' fixed structure: religious demography, legal framework and government practice, societal attitudes, and United States engagement.

The report records that any religious group seeking official recognition must complete a multistep documentary process with the Bureau of Worship, a unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which continued to give the Roman Catholic Church some preferential treatment including a monthly stipend to priests. Vodou and Muslim representatives said their groups still struggled to gain registration and financial support for their schools, and Islamic groups continued to wait for official recognition.

The pandemic dominated the year. From March to July the government suspended all public gatherings of more than five persons, including services; in March police arrested 32 people of various affiliations for violating the restrictions, and in late July religious leaders called the measures unfair because businesses and government offices could reopen while houses of worship could not. Vodou and Islamic organizations said their exclusion as official COVID-19 relief partners was discriminatory. In July, Christian groups objected to the new penal code for its protections of LGBTI persons, decriminalization of abortion and the lowering of the age of sexual consent from 16 to 15. In August, Hope Ministry reported what it considered the targeted killing of a Presbyterian pastor, and priests and pastors were among the hundreds of victims of gang-related kidnappings for ransom; insecurity forced the Evangelical Baptist Union Mission of Haiti to relocate activities. United States embassy officials pressed the Bureau of Worship on registration and met leaders across faiths.