9 Haitian Feminism Since the 2010 Earthquake – Sam Butler

Sam Butler

Haitian Feminism Since the 2010 Earthquake

Introduction:

Inspired by Jonathan Katz’s The Big Truck that Went By, an examination of Haiti as it has been affected by foreign aid following the deadly earthquake in 2010, I wish to look at the ways in which feminist movements in the country have been impacted not just by the earthquake itself, but by the foreign involvement that followed. The earthquake took the lives of three leading feminists in the nation, and halted the work of many more, and stalled any governmental progress in that area. Katz describes the consequences of the “compassion economy” that have impacted Haiti not just after the earthquake of 2010 but after each instance in their continual cycle of crises. The country, and more specifically the women, are forced not just to deal with the effects of the disasters themselves, but also with the continued colonialism that comes with American, French, and Canadian intervention. I will begin by addressing the history of Haitian feminism, and I also hope to understand how gender equality and feminism have changed through economic development and urbanization in Haiti, and where they lie today. My research will undoubtedly collide with themes of transnationalism and coloniality of gender/knowledge.

The first of those themes that I’d like to look at is a theme that plays a critical role in Katz’s text, which is the tension between nation states and international cooperation. The earthquake that struck Haiti in January of 2010 “killed more than 250,000 people, left over 1.5 million homeless, and destroyed much of the nation’s infrastructure.”^[1] A catastrophe of that size warranted millions of dollars of foreign aid from both foreign governments and NGOs. The main problem introduced by all of this foreign involvement was whether Haitians would actually get to be the people making the decisions regarding their own futures. A clear national identity is necessary in making sure international players don’t determine the future of such a small country that has just been ravaged by disaster. Turkish economist Dani Rodrik writes, “Our elites’ and technocrats’ obsession with globalism weakens citizenship where it is most needed – at home – and makes it more difficult to achieve economic prosperity, financial stability, social inclusion and other desirable objectives.”^[2] In the global world we live in, decisions about aid are not made by those receiving it, but are rather determined by the influential, international powers that are the ones who step into help. This kind of aid does not emphasize building stronger states, but ends up providing a more temporary fix that ultimately perpetuates imbalance. Many decisions in Haiti concerning responses to the earthquake were made by international entities, whether they were the UN, NGOs, or nations like the U.S., when those decisions should ideally be made by the people to whom Haiti’s best interest is their own: Haitians.

One reason this is so important, especially given the locus of this paper which focuses on the feminist movement, is because of the next point of orientation within my theoretical framework: the coloniality of gender. This is not meant necessarily to be an accusatory point of analysis, but as I will dive deeper into later, foreign actors are unfamiliar with the experience of women in Haiti and unaware of the extent of gender-based violence there. And so, imposing their own ideas of gender, especially in the decisions regarding who gets to be a part of the reconstruction process, ends up being ineffective in actually combatting the problems women are facing, and especially the ones that were greatly exacerbated by the Earthquake.

However, international involvement isn’t entirely bad by any means. Haitian feminists in the United States and Canada use their positionality to provide the world with a more nuanced and broader understanding of Haitian feminism. Evren Savci explains the benefits of transnational approaches, “[They] emphasize the political function of borders while they expose their constructedness and porousness.”^[3] The porousness of the Haitian border allows feminists in the diaspora to have an impact within the nation’s borders, not just as tangible change, but also providing an outside perspective.

And my last point of theoretical orientation before looking at the more concrete aspects of this paper, is intersectionality (inescapable as always!). The main way I would like to interact with this concept is in the way that was first introduced to me by Professor Mónica Morena Figueroa of Cambridge University. The way she thinks about intersectionality in her work is when focusing on issues revolving around a single axis of oppression, to also look at what questions arise regarding other axes of oppression, and how we can use those questions to further our research. In this case that means that even though I am focusing on the effects of the earthquake on women and girls in Haiti, I want to make sure to also look at how the earthquake exacerbates other forms of oppression, and how other marginalized groups experienced the aftermath.

Feminist History in Haiti:

Before jumping all the way to 2010, however, I’d like to provide some historical context. When the earthquake struck Haiti it did damage to a feminist movement that was neither small nor immature. As early as the 1910’s, the Ligue Feminine d’Action Sociale was holding democratic forums which facilitated abstract conversations about social concerns of the time, and translated them into tangible change.^[4] Grace Louise Sanders, a professor of Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, recounts a talk given by Jean Price-Mars—a prominent Haitian ethno-anthropologist—to a group of elite women in the early 1930’s. She explains how he confronted the divide between elite and peasant women by insisting that they were all united by a shared African ancestry, and taking a step further, that the elite women had much to learn from the peasants who were more “purely” connected to their African roots. He also united the two groups by framing them both within the patriarchal society of Haiti. He described how both groups were used by men, the peasant women as agricultural laborers and the elites as ornamental accessories to elite lifestyle.^[5] This evidence of the subversion of women in Haitian society provides us with a seed of understanding for where the epidemic of gender-based violence originated, which I will get into later. It also exposes the fact that the oppression that Haitian feminists have been fighting against is a fight that has been going on for many decades, not just since their struggles have been made visible by international digital media.

Throughout the twenties and thirties, there was a robust group of the Haitian elite (Jean Price-Mars among them) advocating for an expansion of education in the nation, which was seen as a way to not only improve the social issues of the time, but as a way to unite around a shared cultural and national identity. These calls for education were particularly aimed at women who were recognized as subordinates in the patriarchal system.^[6] Throughout the twentieth century, many that could, left Haiti to pursue educational opportunities in the United States, Canada and France. Jean Price-Mars who gave the talk on uniting the female population of Haiti for instance, made his way to France after high school to study medicine, only to return later to share his then globalized understanding of what was best for Haiti.^[7] Point de Ralliement des Femmes Haitiennes was a group formed in the sixties by Haitian women who had migrated to Montreal. Though they were forced to grapple with conflicting internal identity (having left their home), they made it this group’s mission to focus on the oppression of women in Haiti. In the seventies, the feminist movement transitioned to focus primarily on combating the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier, and created international connections to help fight his regime, specifically by trying to get their message to communist sympathizers and ultimately back to Haiti itself.^[8] This collaboration is a perfect example under our transnational feminist framework, in which Haitian feminists in the diaspora were able to use their positionality to have a positive impact on the movement in Haiti proper, and the movement was able to transcend, (but not ignore) international boundaries.

Gender-based violence: 

The snapshot that Price-Mars reveals, of a society where women are accessorized and taken advantage of by men, leads us into an era of gender-based violence that is inarguably the biggest struggle that women in Haiti have had to face for the last fifty years. “Gender-based violence encompasses a variety of concepts in Haiti, including the view of women as property, their roles as breadwinners and activists for women’s rights, their functions as mothers and heads of households, and their involvement as advocates for civil society.”^[9] Historically, rape and gender-based violence have been used as weapons of power to instill fear and quell resistance movements. “In the mid-1990’s, under the illegal regime of General Raoul Cedras, rape and other forms of gender-based violence were used as instruments of terror. Women were targeted for abuse because of their political support for democracy, their intimate association with other activists, their class, and their gender.”^[10] There was some progress made to help protect women before the 2010 earthquake, however, few of the articulated goals materialized due to lacking government mobility and resources.^[11] After President Jean Bertrand Aristide was ousted in 2004, rape again “became a political weapon by armed insurgents to instill fear and to punish women believed have supported the democratic government.”^[12] Despite some improvements since then, efforts to combat gender-based violence have been largely unsuccessful. “In some instances, officials attributed the problem of rape to promiscuity and domestic violence. This antipathy has a cascading effect; victims perceive law enforcement as ineffective or unsympathetic and, consequently, fail to report crimes. Government officials in turn insist that no such “epidemic” of gender-based violence exists, and allocate even fewer resources to address it.”^[13] In a political state lacking both the will and resources to combat gender-based violence, the earthquake worsened the issue like never before.

So now to the earthquake itself…

Direct effects of the earthquake: 

An article published by UN Women explains, “that humanitarian crises are known to affect women and girls differently and disproportionately. They can spike rates of gender-based and sexual violence, increase the burden of care and unpaid labour, cause disproportionate losses of economic and educational opportunities, and result in unequal access to humanitarian assistance, information and resources.”^[14] This article—written in 2021 after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, eerily similar to the one in 2010 struck Haiti,—describes the negative effects of natural disaster that were also absolutely evident in 2010. A particularly devastating addition to the damage laid out above, were the deaths of Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin, and Anne Marie Coriolan in 2010. All three of these women were instrumental in reconstructing the feminist movement in Haiti after the dictatorial reign of Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier ended in the 1980’s.^[15] Merlet founded the women’s group Enfofanm, which used media to bring attention to women’s stories in the country. She also served as chief of staff for Haiti’s Ministry for Gender and the Rights of Women.^[16] Marcelin was the founder of Kay Fanm, an organization focused on helping survivors of domestic violence providing shelter and financial support for women.^[17] Finally, Coriolan, who was also high in the ranks of Haiti’s Ministry for Gender and the Rights of Women, founded Solidarite Fanm Ayisyen which worked to combat gender-based violence and end the oppression of women in Haiti.^[18] All three of these women played a role in criminalizing rape in 2005 (which up until that point had been treated as nothing more than “an offense against morals”).^[19] Not only was Haitian feminism greatly damaged by the loss of these three leaders, those who remained were not given the opportunity nor the attention to continue their efforts, specifically in terms of what was required to address the calamities resulting from the 2010 earthquake: “Women, especially poor women, have been excluded from full participation and leadership in the relief effort, despite the international law mandate of UN Security Council Resolution 1325… that requires a gender perspective be integrated into ongoing discussion and planning.”^[20] This is particularly noteworthy because the temporary camps for those displaced by the earthquake lacked security and privacy and created an environment that left hundreds of thousands of women and girls prone to gender-based violence. A report published by the Georgetown Institute for Women and the Japan International Cooperation Agency in 2016, explains, “The international community overlooked women’s specific needs and failed to incorporate women’s voices in their response. The post-disaster needs assessment (PDNA) published by the Haitian government, with support of the World Bank, largely overlooked women’s particular needs post-disaster, as well as their capabilities to inform and advance recovery efforts.”^[21] This oversight and exclusion is particularly harmful not only because of the disproportionate effects of the earthquake on women that have already been mentioned, but also because all of these are occurring in a country that was already “considered one of the most unequal nations in the world.”^[22] This inequality was not just exacerbated for women, but for those living with disabilities, the elderly, and the LGBTQ community who, “According to the RGA, … have been doubly affected because many need specific nutritional support, and they face sociocultural barriers that make it harder to access the little food being distributed.”^[23] The temporary camps acted as a microcosm through which all of the tragic consequences of the earthquake were on display. Violence was rampant. Even with an influx of 4,400 police officers provided by the UN, as well as an all female police unit sent from Bangladesh, testimonies from inside the camps reported little change in safety.^[24] As a result of the earthquake “more than 70 police officers died; another 60 are missing, and many others were injured.”^[25] The loss of law enforcement personnel and police stations that were destroyed by the earthquake also made security and safety extremely difficult to maintain. “As of April 2010, there were only 2,261 police officers serving Haiti’s population of 9 million people, a ratio of one officer per 3,981 people.”^[26] At a glance, statistics like these don’t necessarily make clear the disproportionate impacts on women, but absorbing them with the knowledge of pre-existing disparities, and the extent of the gender-based violence epidemic hopefully makes clear the ways in which women were disproportionately hurt by the earthquake.

Even after identifying all of these issues in 2010, the earthquake in 2021 had eerily similar trends. From UN women:

The RGA [Rapid Gender Assessment] reveals that many of the [2021] earthquake’s impacts have been more pronounced for women. For example, 54% of women versus 46% of men have had difficulty accessing health services. Women’s health was specifically cited by surveyed service-providers, many of whom indicated that infection, chronic and acute diseases were exacerbated by shock and stress caused by the earthquake. The assessment also revealed that 18% of women compared to 12% of men are homeless, with 83% of respondents perceiving this as a factor for insecurity and increased risk of violence, especially for women and girls, as they are disproportionately exposed to sexual and gender-based violence.^[27]

It is hard to say exactly why so little progress has been made since 2010, besides that the aid then was not designed to fix systemic issues, but rather to act as a sort of band-aid. The temporary camps, water and food supplies, though not unhelpful, did nothing to elevate women’s voices or to mitigate violence and discrimination, and so all of the disproportionate effects of 2010 were prone to happen again. In the same report, UN women uncovered that yet again, “[women’s] influence in decision-making is limited compared to men (22% vs. 52%). This shows how despite women’s demonstrated resilience and capacity to deal with crises and support their families, they remain largely excluded from decision-making, which is both unacceptable and counter-productive to Haiti’s recovery efforts.”^[28]

Conclusion:

The picture painted thus far has not been an inspiring one; I have focused on the ways in which women in Haiti have been beaten down, taken advantage of, and ignored. But I want to be sure to not discredit the positive work that is being done. In the era following the oppressive Duvalier regime, “existing social movements were able to increasingly work in the open, and women’s sectors were soon operating at the forefront of the nation-wide mobilization against the dictatorship that fell under the rubric of dechoukaj, or uprooting. It is in these hopeful years that MPP’s slogan, san fanm, chanjman pa posib (without women, transformation is not possible), was forged.”^[29] The work of feminists in the face of the immense adversity posed by the Dynastie des Duvaliers, opened the door for a new era of hope and progress. The same is true for the work done in the aftermath of the earthquake. The Haitian Women’s Collective, which has been active since the early twentieth century had this to say in there 2021-22 annual report, “Together with others, they were able to support women restarting their small business, providing stipends to teachers, allowing women to feed their families and access their basic needs such as clean water, clothing and household items. As sexual and reproductive health is a priority for HWC, we worked with the organizations Profamil, SOPHA and Fondation Toya to ensure access to quality services under the most challenging conditions.”^[30] Even though these steps are not the fundamental systemic changes that are needed to end the oppression that has plagued Haitian women for decades, these acts of allyship and defiance are the sparks that ignite movemental change. I am hopeful that barring another disaster in the years to come, that Haitian women will be able to make significant progress in the fight for equality.