Some women are resorting to trading sex for food, human rights activists have warned
BOGOTA (TrustLaw) – The lives of mothers and babies in camps housing Haiti’s earthquake survivors are at risk due to poor access to healthcare services, while some women are resorting to trading sex for food, human rights activists say.
Over a year and a half after the devastating earthquake, around 300,000 women and girls still live in squalid camps under tents and tarps sprawled across the capital Port-au-Prince.
“Despite gains made due to free healthcare services, the government and international donors have not addressed critical gaps in access to health services or addressed conditions that may give rise to maternal and infant deaths,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement following the launch of the group’s report on Tuesday.
The report, based on interviews with 128 women and girls living in 15 camps, describes them giving birth on muddy floors and in alleys, often without medical help.
“Some women give birth in tents, some have to walk while in labour to get medical help. One woman was turned away at the hospital and gave birth on the street,” Amanda Klasing, the report’s author, told AlertNet by phone from Port-au-Prince.
While local and foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) provide free health care, few women know about the health services on offer and where to go for help.
“There’s a general lack of information about what services are available. One of the main gaps in accessing natal care is that women can’t pay for tests and the transport costs to medical appointments and other costs not included in the package of free care,” Klasing said.
The story of 23-year-old Benita who gave birth in a camp because she did not have money to reach a hospital to deliver her baby in time is not uncommon.
“The hospitals are free, but you have to pay for transportation, and I didn't have that…. It was difficult. I suffered much,” Benita is quoted as saying in the HRW report.
“At four in the afternoon I went into labor, I gave birth at 7 p.m. The baby died the day after at two in the afternoon. We didn't call an ambulance or go to the hospital. We went for a funeral instead.”
With high unemployment and poverty in the capital, women are struggling to make ends meet. Hunger is driving women to trade sex for food as a means of survival, often without any protection from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
“I don't work. I don't have parents to help. Many times women get pregnant, and they don’t have anyone to take care of them. So, for US$0.60 or $1.25, you have sex just for that,” one Haitian woman is quoted as saying in the report.
“Unfortunately, women sometimes get pregnant, but if we had access to planning, we’d protect ourselves.... It's not good to make prostitution, but what can you do? You have to eat.”
Pregnancy rates in the camps are three times higher than in urban areas before the earthquake, the report says, and with little access to family planning, increasing numbers of women and girls are undergoing illegal and unsafe abortions.
Complications from unsafe abortions, such as infections and haemorrhaging, are linked to 13 percent of maternal deaths in Haiti, according to the report.
“Access to family planning for women and girls in displacement camps, to avert the demand for such abortions, is fundamental for the government to meet its obligations to reduce maternal mortality,” the report said.
SEXUAL VIOLENCE
Sexual assault and rape against Haitian women, which was already a problem before the earthquake, has increased since the disaster because of overcrowding, lack of privacy and insecurity in the camps, rights groups says.
Some unwanted pregnancies, among girls as young as 14 years, are the result of rape, the report found. Social stigma and shame often prevent survivors of sexual violence from seeking medical care.
The report highlights the lack of coordination and data-sharing among donors and NGOs, which makes it difficult for the aid community and the Haitian authorities to assess and improve healthcare and track maternal and infant deaths in the camps.
The rights group is urging the international aid community and Haitian authorities to provide adequate medical care to women and ensure their voices are heard, as a fundamental part of the country’s recovery effort.
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