This post is writ­ten by Melanie Brooks, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Media Coor­di­na­tor for CARE. She is cur­rently in Haiti.

Feb. 7, 2010

Night falls, and one by one, the can­dles flicker on in the camps — tiny pin­pricks of light in a city clad in dark­ness. As the sun retreats, the muf­fled cries begin. And the women creep deeper into their flimsy shel­ters of bed sheets and plas­tic tarps, pray­ing for the morn­ing to come.

The women here talk of 'mauvais esprits' (bad spir­its) stalk­ing the sur­vivors of the dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake that killed more than 200,000 peo­ple in Haiti Jan. 12. Sto­ries of rape are spread­ing like wild­fire through the camps, where hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple are hud­dled together under flimsy shel­ters, sleep­ing cheek by jowl.

“It hap­pens at night,” said Han­nah, a nurse who sleeps in a makeshift tent in a crowded camp in Pacot, one of the most dan­ger­ous spon­ta­neous camps that has sprung up in the city of Port-au-Prince after the quake. She speaks softly, tilt­ing her head so as not to be overheard.

“Young men come with weapons, and rape the women. They haven't reported it, because the ser­vices don't exist any­more. The hos­pi­tals, the police — every­thing was destroyed in the earthquake.”

Cases of rape and sex­ual vio­lence were high even before the earth­quake, and rates of vio­lence have increased after pre­vi­ous dis­as­ters. Dark­ened streets due to lack of elec­tric­ity, crowded makeshift camps and unpro­tected bathing and toi­let areas leave women and girls par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­a­ble to harass­ment and sex­ual vio­lence. Hus­bands and broth­ers try to pro­vide pro­tec­tion, and women pass whis­pered warn­ings to each other.

But every night as dark­ness falls, the ter­ror starts anew.

“We cry. We sleep. But it is a half-sleep; we are always wait­ing for some­thing to hap­pen,” said Han­nah. “In my fam­ily, there is always some­one keep­ing watch out­side while the oth­ers sleep. I have a five-year-old daugh­ter, and I'm ter­ri­fied for her. They have no pity. There are men who rape girls as young as six months old in Haiti.”

In the rural areas around Léogâne, women talk of the added fear of escaped con­victs from the col­lapsed prison roam­ing the countryside.

“At night, we are afraid. We hear sto­ries of rapes in the camp next to ours,” said 23-year-old Rachelle, cast­ing a furtive look over her shoul­der. “There's noth­ing we can do. There's no pro­tec­tion. Men have started fol­low­ing us to the street to watch us bathe. We are afraid they will come back at night.”

The women have sim­ple requests: tents to be safe, bathing facil­i­ties for women in a well-lit area, sep­a­rate toi­lets for men and women. CARE is work­ing to meet those needs, but it is a long-term solu­tion to the plague of sex­ual vio­lence in Haiti that is crucial.

“In the short-term, we need to make con­fi­den­tial clin­i­cal ser­vices avail­able to treat sur­vivors of rape includ­ing psy­choso­cial sup­port and secu­rity. Women need to know where they can get these ser­vices. At the same time we must do all we can to pre­vent it. Sex­ual vio­lence was a prob­lem in Haiti before the earth­quake and we know it increases in these types of sit­u­a­tions,” said Janet Mey­ers, CARE's Senior Advi­sor for Sex­ual and Repro­duc­tive Health in Emer­gen­cies. “After the earth­quake, every­one is sleep­ing in camps. They have enough prob­lems, with­out this fear as well.”

CARE is work­ing to re-establish report­ing pro­ce­dures, and ensur­ing con­fi­den­tial, qual­ity ser­vices, includ­ing clin­i­cal man­age­ment of rape, emer­gency con­tra­cep­tion and psy­choso­cial sup­port, are avail­able to treat sur­vivors of rape and sex­ual violence.

But for women like Han­nah and Rachelle, the time needed to make those changes are mea­sured in the slow pass­ing of each dark Haiti night, wait­ing for the mau­vais esprits to pass by their tent.

Names have been changed to pro­tect identities.

via Reuters Alert­Net — Bad spir­its stalk Haiti camps.

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