MADRE is working with our partner, KOFAVIV, to meet immediate needs of rape survivors in the displacement camps and develop community-based anti-violence strategies.
In January 2010, the worst earthquake in 200 years struck Haiti, causing catastrophic destruction in the hemisphere’s poorest country. The earthquake displaced over 1 million people who have found temporary shelter in the 500 Internally Displaced Persons camps across Port-au-Prince. There, incidences of rape have risen to epidemic levels as women and girls live among strangers in overcrowded tent camps, acutely vulnerable to sexual assault.
MADRE is working with our partner KOFAVIV to end the epidemic of rape in the displacement camps by providing security, psychosocial support and medical care for survivors of rape. By distributing self-defense whistles to women in the camp, we help women sound an alarm to avoid rape. MADRE has also launched an international human rights advocacy campaign to demand policy change that protects women.
Women and children in the camps will have greater security and protection, and women who have survived rape will have the support to prosecute their attackers. Haitian women who participate in trainings will be able to advocate at the national and international level to combat violations of women's human rights.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
