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Rape on the rise in Haiti's camps
In one of the great unmentioned effects of the earthquake in Haiti, women and young girls are suffering a rising number of rapes and sexual assaults, according to leading aid agencies. So widespread are the reports–and they include the rape of a girl of 12 by her rescuer after she was pulled out from the rubble–that emergency measures are now being taken.
Displaced men and women patrol some camps with makeshift arms to ward off attackers; girls wear jeans under their skirts for protection if they go out after dark; temporary women-only health centres are being set up; and NGOs try to deliver aid to dangerous neighbourhoods where women are too scared to go out in search for food.
Sarah Spencer, gender-based violence co-ordinator for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), who arrived in Port-au-Prince two weeks ago, said: "Violence against women was a problem in Haiti before this crisis. Now, women and girls are dramatically more vulnerable to attack. The humanitarian community focuses on food, water and shelter, understandably, but this is at the sake of protection for women. Criminal gangs have regrouped; security is poor; people are sleeping in the streets, too frightened to go inside or else in crowded, unlit camps, surrounded by strangers. Many women have been left without male protection because their husbands or brothers were killed. All of this means the risk to women in post-disaster Haiti have elevated dramatically."