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Support the Work of Haitian Feminists Amid Crises and Beyond
It’s necessary that the international community, especially the United States, works according to the needs emphasized by grassroots women’s organizations and civil society.
Dec 07, 2024
The recent waves of gang violence in Haiti, that have plagued the island since February 2024, have plunged it into another major humanitarian crisis. As reported by the United Nations Human Rights Council, the violence has been centered in Port-au-Prince and other areas in the Ouest and Artibonite Departments, but the reduced access to food, healthcare services, and general economic strain due to gang violence are being felt across the departments. With increasing armed violence events, 700,000 internally displaced people, almost 5 million people facing acute food insecurity, and only 28% of functioning healthcare services available, daily life and public safety continue to erode at a rapid pace. This is especially true for women and girls.
Lack of access to the formal economy, enduring threats of public violence, and lack of adequate protections from natural disasters make it exceedingly difficult for women and girls to safely navigate city and nation-wide emergencies. Such emergencies exacerbate the other substandard conditions of education, health, legal protections against gender-based violence, and political participation of Haitian women and girls. Historically, the Haitian women’s movement and feminist activists have provided essential educational resources, legal support services, and platforms for women’s stories to be heard and this political advocacy continues during the present violence.
Haitian women’s feminist groups developed the Policy Framework for an Effective and Equitable Transition. This document highlights the legal rights of Haitian women and girls established in the Haitian Constitution, the oppression Haitian women and girls endure in private and public life as well as recommendations on how the Presidential Transitional Council (TPC) should amend proposed harmful policies already set to be put in place. This Policy Framework is part of the rich legacy of political action taken by Haitian women and feminists since the emancipation of the island from French colonial rule. Haitian feminist activists and civil society leaders have time and time again shown up for their community on the ground during natural disasters and fighting against normalized gendered violence and discrimination. In this moment, they are pushing forward this Policy Framework to display the link between a successful democracy and gender equality.
The United States and other Western countries have a clear responsibility to materially support a locally-led stabilization of Haiti that effectively addresses the needs of all Haitian citizens.
Gang violence in Haiti isn’t a new phenomenon. Throughout the country’s history, the Haitian government relied on armed gangs to assert their authority and maintain power because there was no strong military or police presence. However, the type of armed brutality evident today is a result of the rapidly decaying relationship between Haitian politicians and armed gangs following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Moreover, the armed power of these gangs, which has continued to overpower the Haitian National Police and the MSS mission, is primarily sustained by U.S. weapons sales into the country. The transitional government’s attempts to regain control and establish a stable democracy are failing to address the needs of Haitian women, expressly in this current crisis.
On the Transitional Presidential Council, its Haitian women’s groups have reported that of the nine members only one is a woman and she is one of two members who are unable to vote. In the newly established commission on criminal reform, the same pattern emerges—one woman to eight male members. The intention to restrict women in positions of political authority is cemented by the fact that during the search for an interim prime minister, there were no women invited to interview.
These patterns are dangerous because they directly undermine standards of gender equality established explicitly in the Haitian Constitution, where women are assured to hold at least 30% of political positions. Moreover, the few women that are granted access to political positions in the new government are not representatives of the women’s movement, which threatens to conceal the most pressing issues of Haitian women and girls and thus fail to adequately protect them. This is concerning because It’s been reported that women’s representation as leaders in peace processes is vital in developing sustainable peace agreements and post-conflict stability that create more just futures for the entirety of civil society.
It’s necessary that the international community, especially the United States, works according to the needs emphasized by grassroots women’s organizations and civil society. Prior international efforts meant to ease hardship in Haiti have worked to only make it worse. Decades of violent U.S. occupation, the unjust imposition of international debt from France, careless and corrupt U.N. peacekeeper missions, the destabilization of rice productions and the resulting economic fragility, along with current arms sales from the U.S., have helped create the Haiti we see today.
Because of this history, the United States and other Western countries have a clear responsibility to materially support a locally-led stabilization of Haiti that effectively addresses the needs of all Haitian citizens. Supporting Haitian feminist’s efforts such as the Policy Framework is the first step to respecting the lived experiences of people at the center of conflict and in remedying this historic violence.
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Constitutional Lawyers Back Criminal Charges Against Trump-Vance in Ohio
"Trump and Vance's positions of authority do not immunize them from the consequences that would fall—and have fallen—upon anyone else."
Oct 18, 2024
Legal experts from an advocacy group and a civil rights law firm on Friday called for a county prosecutor to issue criminal charges against former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance for their role in propagating lies about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio.
Constitutional lawyers with Free Speech For People, a Massachusetts-based advocacy group, and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, a Chicago-based law firm, issued a joint letter to Clark County prosecutor Daniel Driscoll in support of a criminal complaint brought by Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), a San Diego-based rights group, on September 24.
The complaint alleges that Trump and Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees, disrupted public services, made false alarms, and engaged in telecommunications harassment and aggravated menacing.
Last month, Trump and Vance repeatedly claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were stealing pets to eat them—the claims, which had no credible basis, were widely derided as racist.
The two Republicans' promulgation of the false rumors led to 33 bomb threats in Springfield, as well as other threats on individuals and elected officials, according to the HBA complaint; state troopers had to be deployed to the town, and some schools and public buildings were closed or evacuated.
Friday's joint letter argues that Trump and Vance repeated the dangerous claims after they knew them to be false and that their statements predictably caused security threats; it characterizes this as "severe criminal misconduct."
"Trump and Vance's continuous use of their national platform to spread dangerous falsehoods that foreseeably cause widespread civic disruption against already marginalized communities falls squarely within the criminal charges your office has been asked to evaluate," the letter says.
"Trump and Vance's positions of authority do not immunize them from the consequences that would fall—and have fallen—upon anyone else," the authors also wrote.
BREAKING: We just issued a joint letter w/ attorneys at @HSPRD in support of @HaitianBridge, urging the Clark County Ohio prosecutor to pursue criminal charges against Trump & Vance for dangerous, inflammatory, & repeated lies about the Haitian community. https://t.co/0M8JlB5IIh
— Free Speech For People (@FSFP) October 18, 2024
The criminal complaint, called an affidavit, was filed under a Ohio law that allows citizens to seek criminal charges. It asks that the prosecutor find probable cause to arrest Trump and Vance.
A panel of local judges referred the matter to Driscoll on October 4, but so far he's not taken public action or set a date for a hearing, which Subodh Chandra, the Ohio lawyer that filed the complaint for HBA, has said is a requirement before a complaint can be quashed. HBA is keen to have such a public airing of the facts, the Los Angeles Timesreported last month.
The letter from Free Speech For People and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym argues that free speech is not a valid defense for Trump and Vance in this case, as "the evidence overwhelmingly establishes" that their "speech was knowingly false."
"Trump and Vance made a calculated decision to repeat racist falsehoods... knowing their calls would activate their supporters and others into disruptive and violent action," the letter says.
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To Defend Haitian Migrants, Oppose the US Policies That Forced Them to Flee
Truly addressing the root causes of migration will require the United States to seriously reevaluate its own centuries-long role in stifling Haitian democracy and creating a crisis of forced displacement.
Oct 17, 2024
The racist lies against Haitian immigrants in the United States that have been dominating the news cycle are being delivered by Republicans, but they are built on bipartisan—and often racist—U.S. policies that drive Haitians from their home country to our borders.
While we are justifiably condemning the hateful and dangerous attacks against Haitians, we need to equally condemn U.S. government support for repressive and corrupt Haitian leaders, and insist on supporting Haitians’ efforts to reestablish a stable, prosperous homeland where they can live in peace and security.
Haitian migrants seeking refuge in the United States and elsewhere are fleeing a deep crisis generated by actors associated with the U.S.-backed Pati Ayisyen Tèt Kale (PHTK). PHTK founder President Michel Martelly came to power in 2011, after the Obama administration pressured Haiti’s electoral council to change the results of the 2010 preliminary elections. U.S. support continued for Martelly’s hand-picked successor, President Jovenel Moïse, who came to power through flawed elections, overstayed his constitutionally mandated presidential term, and tried to push forward self-serving, illegal constitutional reform. The Biden administration installed and then continued to prop up Moïse’s successor, de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who ruled for nearly three years without a constitutional or popular mandate. Martelly, Moïse, and Henry—all three of whom are affiliated with the PHTK—enjoyed consistent U.S. support despite being responsible for spectacular corruption, state-sanctioned massacres, and the dismantling of Haiti’s democratic structures and accountability mechanisms.
The Biden administration consistently preaches the importance of addressing root causes of migration, even as it continues to support corrupt and repressive Haitian actors that stifle democracy and drive Haitians to flee.
This persistent U.S. support has already undermined Haiti’s transition—which hopes to lead the country out of crisis and toward stability and democracy—by placing many of the same PHTK-affiliated actors responsible for Haiti’s crisis at its center. For example, through a process overseen by the State Department, PHTK-affiliated groups were granted 3 of the 7 voting seats on Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council. Although an early attempt by those members to co-opt the transitional process ultimately failed, it left Haitians even more skeptical that the crisis could be resolved by the same U.S.-backed actors who created it.
The pattern of U.S. support for corrupt and repressive actors in Haiti follows a history of persistent destabilization ever since Haiti won its independence from France in 1804. The United States was afraid then that a stable and prosperous free Black republic would undermine the white supremacy upon which the U.S. system of enslavement—and attendant political and economic power—rested, and would inspire other Black people to fight for their freedom. Consequently, the U.S. government took steps early on to undermine Haiti’s development. These included refusing to recognize Haiti’s sovereignty until 1864 and occupying the country for nearly 20 years, from 1915 to 1934. During that time, marines stole gold from Haiti’s national reserves, took control of its financial and political institutions, and reinstated a system of forced labor akin to enslavement.
Significant Haitian migration to the United States began in the 1960s in response to the horrors inflicted by the U.S.-backed Duvalier dictatorships. For nearly 30 years, the United States supported Francois “Papa Doc” and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier despite their well-documented disregard for human rights and democracy, because they were a reliable vote against Cuba at the United Nations and the Organization of American States. The U.S. government labeled Haitians fleeing the brutality of the Duvaliers’ secret police “economic migrants” and detained and removed them, even as it welcomed those fleeing communist Cuba and Vietnam as “political refugees.”
Emigration from Haiti spiked when Haitians fled the brutal U.S.-backed military regime that took power after the 1991 coup d’état—also allegedly supported by the CIA—that overthrew Haiti’s first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It spiked again in 2004 after a U.S.-backed coup ousted Aristide a second time. The U.S. government used the period of extreme violence that predictably followed the coup it had orchestrated to justify sending in a U.N. peacekeeping operation, MINUSTAH. The peacekeeping mission lasted 13 years, cost over $7 billion, and was responsible for countless violations of Haitian rights and dignity. Meanwhile, the United States installed a series of undemocratic U.S.-backed regimes, including the PHTK-affiliated regimes described above.
The Biden administration consistently preaches the importance of addressing root causes of migration, even as it continues to support corrupt and repressive Haitian actors that stifle democracy and drive Haitians to flee. A recent resolution put forth by members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus calling for legislation that directly addresses U.S. policies contributing to forced migration—including the failure to stop the flow of weapons trafficking from the United States to Haiti—is an important step toward aligning U.S. practices with its rhetoric.
But truly addressing the root causes of migration will require the United States to seriously reevaluate its own centuries-long role in the crisis of forced displacement in Haiti. As long as we keep supporting the corrupt, repressive actors whose policies force Haitians to flee, they are going to keep arriving at our borders.
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