Haiti - Women 'more protected' to report sexual violence

It has been five years since the U.N. sent peacekeepers to Haiti following the forced departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the country, while not in a state of war, remains one of the world's most unstable. Kidnappings, criminal violence, gang warfare and violent armed confrontation with the U.N. Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has increased the number of reported cases of sexual violence against women and girls. Data collected informally by local non-governmental organisations, and the humanitarian Medicins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) has revealed an alarming spike in sexual violence last year. The number of cases of raped women and girls has increased 40 percent from 1,100 cases in 2007 to 1,600 in 2008. The big difference, according to the executive secretary of the Haitian Violence Against Women National Group, Nicole Magloire, is that women now feel "more protected to report", she told IPS.