Click Here for Larger Image >> The late Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste holds a religious image as he is taken into Canape Vert hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 28, 2006. Jean-Juste, a jailed politically influential Catholic priest who had been ill with leukemia, was transferred to a hospital  after an appeals court in Haiti approved the move, his lawyer said. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Click Here for Larger Image >> Family members wait in line to deliver food to inmates in front of the national penitentiary in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, May 16, 2006. Demonstrators gathered Tuesday in front of the Justice Palace in Port-au-Prince to voice concerns for the treatment of prisoners in the Haitian penal system. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Improving the judicial system is one of the largest struggles for Haiti, as recent unrest has led to thousands of arrests, while systemic problems such as underfunding and a lack of trained judges have left suspects in jail cells for months at a time. According to the 2006 State Department report, at the time it was written, 96 percent of the detainees and prisoners at the National Penitentiary had not been formally sentenced by a judge. This inefficiency only further compounds the enormous burden on prisons, whose conditions are already very poor. Due to the unrest that followed Aristide's removal from power in 2004, the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince began packing in prisoners; despite a maximum capacity of 800, it held 1,800 by year's end. According to the U.S. State Department, in 2005, prisoners and detainees continued to suffer from a lack of basic hygiene, malnutrition, poor quality health care, and, in some facilities, 24-hour confinement. Furthermore, the likelihood of a fair trial for many of these detainees is decidedly low, as the judiciary is still subject to significant influence from the executive and legislative branches.


Security
Since 2004, the high level of instability in Haiti has left an absence of any real ability for institutions to protect human rights. According to Freedom House, the Haitian Police, currently estimated at 7,700 strong, virtually collapsed in the 2004 uprising and is only slowly becoming a recognizable force. What's more, those forces have historically been responsible for many human rights abuses themselves and are part of an overall system that can hardly claim to provide justice. According to the U.S. Department of State's report released in March 2006, there were many cases in 2005 in which the HNP had been responsible for arbitrary arrests, disappearances, and torture, despite their best attempts to fight internal corruption. On the positive side, since the Préval regime took office in 2006, the government has not committed any politically motivated killings or disappearances, in harsh contrast to the year before.

The addition of U.N. forces, known as MINUSTAH, helped to provide some level of security in some parts of the country, however, in Port-au-Prince slums such as Cité Soleil and Bel Air, making progress has been difficult, and armed gangs continue to perpetrate killings and disappearances on a regular basis.

Culture of Impunity
The culture of impunity is a large problem for Haiti. The government continues to struggle to bring to justice those responsible for crimes such as politically motivated killings. Two years after the murder of journalist Abdias Jean, still no charges have been filed despite several eyewitnesses who state that they watched Haitian Police execute him in a Port-au-Prince slum in January 2005. In other cases, the government has acquitted guilty parties, such as in the case of the murder of former Aristide financier Antoine Izméry in 1993, where despite ample evidence, both perpetrators were acquitted in 2005 by a judiciary loyal to the new interim government, of which they were both supporters.

Poverty
Haiti is the site of both the worst poverty and the most inequality in the Western Hemisphere. According to 2004 statistics, over three-quarters of the population are poor (76 percent) and over half can be classified as extremely poor (56 percent). This means that over 6.2 million Haitians live on less than $2 a day, while over 4.4 million live on less than $1. This places Haiti well below its regional neighbors and on par with some of the poorest countries in Africa. By contrast, in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, less than 2 percent of the population is classified as extremely poor.

Education and Children
Many children in Haiti suffer daily from malnutrition, violence, and a very poor system of education. According to the most recent UNICEF statistics from 2004, approximately 23 percent of all children under the age of 5 were chronically malnourished. Furthermore, a lack of funding has left the nation with an insufficient number of schools to meet the needs of its population, while the schools that do exist are largely understaffed and in very poor condition. To obtain an education, those who can afford it send their children to private schools. However, these schools are costly, and many families are forced to choose just one of their children to send to school, while the rest stay home. According to government figures, 40 percent of children never attended school, and of those who did, less than 15 percent graduated from secondary school. The country's adult literacy rate is currently 52 percent, and without a drastic increase in school enrollment, it will only continue to flounder.

A larger problem for children in the country is the systemic form of child slavery in which 300,000 children are thought to be a part. The child slaves, known as "restaveks," are part of a social system in which poor families in the countryside send their children to families in the cities with the hopes that they will be fed and educated. Unfortunately, for most of them, this is not the case. These child slaves are subject to long hours, repeated beatings, and frequent sexual assault, as over 70 percent of them are girls. Although the Haitian child labor code doesn't allow for the use of laborers under 12 years old, these laws are seldom followed.

However, journalists who promote human rights or civil liberties in Haiti routinely remain the target of attacks by both armed gangs and rogue police officers, and there have been a number of cases in which journalists have been abducted or killed since 2000, including the murders of journalists Jean Dominique, Brignol Lindor, Abdias Jean, and Jacques Roche among others.

Additionally, the government appears to have on occasion used the justice system as a means to control political opponents. In July 2005, police arrested human rights defender Gerard Jean-Juste for involvement in the murder of journalist Jacques Roche, despite the fact that he was out of the country when Roche was abducted and remained out of the country when his body was found. 

U.S. Policy/ Other Concerns
The United States has always taken a large role in Haitian politics. It was a U.S. - led intervention in 1994 that put Haitian President Aristide back in power, and it is thought by many that it was the United States who chose to remove him from office once again in 2004. Between 1995 and 2003, the United States gave more than $850 million in bilateral assistance to Haiti, and it remains the largest single-country donor to Haiti, having provided another $640 million in assistance since 2004. Currently, the United States has both military and police personnel working in the Canadian-led MINUSTAH mission in Haiti.

External Links

Local Organizations
AlterPresse
National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH)
Haiti Analysis

International Organizations
International Crisis Group
US AID
MINUSTAH
Medecins Sans Frontieres 

Breaking News
Haiti News Network
Alert Net (Reuters): Haiti Troubles
Haiti Progres
Haiti Support Group
Haiti Innovation 

Human Rights Reports
Amnesty International Recommendations
Human Rights Watch Report (2006)
US Department of State Report (2006)Freedom House Report (2006)

Updated August 2007