What Haiti’s political transition should be doing for Haiti’s women – and isn’t
Source: The New Humanitarian
Haiti’s transitional government is promising to restore democracy, human rights, and stability after years of crisis, but in practice it is excluding women and ignoring their distinct needs. It is thus on course to perpetuate long-standing patterns of discrimination that have historically left Haiti’s women at the margins of public life and made them objects of endemic gender-based violence (GBV). Global experience indicates that this policy failing will also weaken Haiti’s transition as a whole.
Haitian feminist and human rights activists are fighting back with a proposed Policy Framework for an Effective and Equitable Transition that identifies established legal rights, obligations, and best practices necessitating women’s inclusion in Haiti’s transition, and offers concrete recommendations for corrections to the exclusionary policies adopted by the transitional government to date.
The Framework’s urgent adoption is imperative. If implemented, it will help to preserve the transition as a mechanism for stabilising democracy and sustainable development while advancing women’s rights in Haiti.
An ongoing tradition of neglecting women
Discrimination against women and girls has always been a feature of Haitian society, including as a legacy of abuse towards Black women’s bodies born of colonialism and enslavement. Women and girls face added barriers to education, accessing funds and resources, and participating in the formal economy. They have been kept out of positions of authority and political leadership. Indeed, Haiti has had one of the lowest levels of women’s political representation in the world, often suppressed by targeted violence. Pervasive patriarchal and discriminatory stereotypes exacerbate such structural barriers through expectations around family roles, gendered activities, and permissive attitudes towards GBV. These patterns enable pervasive gendered violence and are in turn deepened by it. Impunity has been the norm.
Read here the full article published by The New Humanitarian on 4 September 2024.
Image credits: The New Humanitarian
Haiti’s transitional government is promising to restore democracy, human rights, and stability after years of crisis, but in practice it is excluding women and ignoring their distinct needs. It is thus on course to perpetuate long-standing patterns of discrimination that have historically left Haiti’s women at the margins of public life and made them objects of endemic gender-based violence (GBV). Global experience indicates that this policy failing will also weaken Haiti’s transition as a whole.
Haitian feminist and human rights activists are fighting back with a proposed Policy Framework for an Effective and Equitable Transition that identifies established legal rights, obligations, and best practices necessitating women’s inclusion in Haiti’s transition, and offers concrete recommendations for corrections to the exclusionary policies adopted by the transitional government to date.
The Framework’s urgent adoption is imperative. If implemented, it will help to preserve the transition as a mechanism for stabilising democracy and sustainable development while advancing women’s rights in Haiti.
An ongoing tradition of neglecting women
Discrimination against women and girls has always been a feature of Haitian society, including as a legacy of abuse towards Black women’s bodies born of colonialism and enslavement. Women and girls face added barriers to education, accessing funds and resources, and participating in the formal economy. They have been kept out of positions of authority and political leadership. Indeed, Haiti has had one of the lowest levels of women’s political representation in the world, often suppressed by targeted violence. Pervasive patriarchal and discriminatory stereotypes exacerbate such structural barriers through expectations around family roles, gendered activities, and permissive attitudes towards GBV. These patterns enable pervasive gendered violence and are in turn deepened by it. Impunity has been the norm.
Read here the full article published by The New Humanitarian on 4 September 2024.
Image credits: The New Humanitarian