Gender and Violence in Haiti: Women's Path from Victims to Agents

Introduction

1 Current scholarship as well as international policy studies focusing on civil conflicts and armed violence have construed women as victims and men as perpetrators of violence. This prevalent interpretation tells part of the story, but it leaves out an equally important dimension: women as participants in violence and men occasionally as victims. This book joins the emerging effort to highlight limitations in the conventional wisdom and to enlarge understandings of why women engage in violence. To that end, this study focuses in particular on women and girls in the slum communities of Haiti. It explores the nexus between their prior victimization by sexual abuse and their subsequent decision to join armed factions. This research is informed by other studies addressing the relationship between violence against women and women’s participation in violence in several countries torn apart by civil or military conflicts. This book, however, provides the first empirical analysis of Haiti’s high prevalence of sexual violence and female involvement in armed violence. Specifically, this study aims at shedding light on girls’ and women’s internalization of gender stereotypes and their experience of violence, which engenders common patterns of retaliation. It investigates the incentives , conditions, and decision-making processes that motivate victims of rape and sexual abuse to join armed groups and to become actively affiliated with and perpetrators of violence. By investigating the current international legal norms for and Haitian legislation on both female victimization and female aggression, this analysis aims at contributing to the Introduction 2 GENDER AND VIOLENCE IN HAITI design of effective measures to free women from violence, to dispel their anger and resentment toward ineffective forms of community reconciliation , and to improve their reintegration into society. This empirical research has been informed by longitudinal fieldwork conducted during a total of twelve months between June 2006 and December 2008 in the three cities of Haiti that are primarily affected by armed violence—Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haitien, and Gonaives. The research design included in-depth face-to-face interviews, focus groups, and participant observation. It involved a heterogeneous sample of informants comprised of women who either had been victims of violence or had been members of armed groups, in addition to representatives of international and national institutions or civil society organizations working on the issues of women and armed violence in the country. Pursuing this research in Haiti, in the midst of political uncertainty, social discontent, violent confrontations, and brutal reprisals against the resident population and foreigners, has been a challenging, but insightful, experience. Every work is partially the fruit of personal events that capture one’s attention and create incentives and memories, and so is this. Two very different episodes, in which I was either a powerless spectator or a silent and compassionate listener, motivated me to contemplate the unfortunate and hostile destiny of Haitian women and girls. During my stay in Port-au-Prince during one of my fieldtrips, I was driven home one night by UN personnel as a security measure. I glimpsed an unusual and eerie movement on my side of the street. Drawing nearer to the window, in the darkness of a secondary narrow path that was rugged and almost entirely obstructed by garbage, I saw a group of young men forcibly dragging a little girl and beating her on the head while she struggled . I jumped up in my seat and screamed to stop the car, but safety rules require personnel on such occasions to leave the area and promptly report the case by radio to security forces. We did, but when the patrol arrived at the place, only a few minutes later, they could not find any trace of the victim or her assailants. I will never know what happened, but I thought about that night and the little girl for a long time. Only a few days later, through an informant from Médecins sans Fronti ères/Doctors without Borders (MSF), I arranged an interview with two representatives—victims themselves—of a national organization providing INTRODUCTION 3 primary medical assistance to girls affected by sexual violence in a conflict area of Port-au-Prince. Because, according to security measures, I was not authorized to enter the area, both women consented to travel for one and half hours each way, in the midst of political demonstrations and disorder , to reach the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) compound where I was temporarily staying...