The goals of the current study were to: (1) estimate the prevalence of forced sex among women accessing services at a women's health clinic in rural Haiti; and (2) examine factors associated with forced sex in this population. Based on data from a case-control study of risk factors for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), a cross-sectional analysis to examine factors associated with forced sex was performed. A number of factors related to gender inequality/socioeconomic vulnerability placed women in rural Haiti at higher risk of forced sex.

Background

Sexual exploitation and abuse by aid workers and peacekeepers is happening in the aid sector and it has been happening for a long time. Sexual violence, exploitation and abuse against women and girls is endemic in many developing countries, especially where there is conflict and forced displacement, as we have found in previous work. Forms of systematic criminal sexual exploitation, for example in the form of human trafficking into prostitution, is also a common feature of such environments.

Although Haitian women have been systematically excluded from social and historical discourse even as they actively engage in the fight for change, EdwidgeDanticat proves through her characters that revolutionaries come in many forms. Breath, Eyes, Memory rewrites the myths embedded in the country’s historical narratives so that Haitian women are unsilenced.

Background: Military presence in fragile settings leads to complex and multifaceted interactions between local women and girls of the host country and foreign military personnel. Children Born of War are one consequence of sexual interactions, whether consensual or not, between foreign armies or peacekeeping forces and women and girls of the host country. One particular group of Children Born of War are children fathered by UN peacekeeping personnel and born to civilian women and girls who reside in countries that host peace operations.

Sexual violence against children is a significant global public health problem, yet limited studies exist from low-resource settings. In Haiti we conducted the country's first, nationally representative survey focused on childhood violence to help inform the development of a national action plan for violence against children. The Haiti Violence Against Children Survey was a household-level, multistage, cluster survey among youth age 13-24.

Adolescent girls in low-resource settings account for over 7.3 million births annually (generally unplanned). Unplanned teen pregnancies are increasing in lowresource settings. As part of a funded Round 20 Grand Challenges Exploration project (Healthy Minds for Adolescent Mothers), we investigated unplanned teen pregnancies in Haiti’s Cité Soleil shantytown, teens’ biopsychosocial challenges, and desirable interventions.

The 2010 earthquake and cholera outbreak in Haiti have given a push to women’s migration to the Dominican Republic, and risk of being trafficked.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health issue with detrimental consequences for women’s reproductive, mental, and physical health. In Haiti, IPV is a major obstacle to women’s development. Yet, the determinants of IPV victimization are still not well understood. In this study, we utilized the 2016–2017 Haiti Demographic and Health Survey to determine the prevalence of IPV victimization and its subtypes (emotional, physical, and sexual abuse) among married or cohabiting women (N = 3,805) of reproductive age (15–49) by their current husband/partner.

In this paper Marie-Jose N'zengou-Tayo draws on a variety of sources, both historical and contemporary, to describe the journey of Haitian women from nineteenth-century post-War of Independence, to present-day Haitian society.