In May and June 2010, MADRE joined delegations coordinated by the Lawyers’ Earthquake Response Network (LERN) to Haiti to investigate the problem of rape and other gender-based violence in the camps. We found that women are being raped at an alarming rate-every day-in camps throughout Port-au-Prince. The Haitian Government, the UN and others in the international community have failed to adequately address the situation. Women, especially poor women, have been excluded from full participation and leadership in the relief effort.

Haitian women and girls began last year bereaved, traumatized, injured and displaced by the January 12, 2010 earthquake. Over the past twelve months, as they have sought to begin to rebuild from the disaster and tend to the many vulnerable children, disabled and elderly people in their care, the women of Haiti have faced another catastrophe: an epidemic of sexual violence.