Sexual violence after disasters is common - anticipate and protect

Original publication on Huffington Post “Haiti: Addressing atrocities following the earthquake”

Feel free to listen to my interview on NPR’s Here & Now with Robyn Young:

The 2010 Haiti earthquake was 7.0M took an estimated 160,000 lives leading to mass graves, and displaced 1.5 million people , of which 550,000 remained without shelter two years later. Many countries pledged funds, rescue and medical teams to provide humanitarian aid.

Two months later, the smell of dead bodies trapped under the rubble still lingers in the air, and food, water, and security barely exist. On top of this devastation is a second natural disaster that followed: girls and women, from 2 to 72 years old, are being raped in their make-shift shelters.

I was there conducting psychiatric evaluations for humanitarian parole - a legal status that would allow victims to have life-saving medical care in the U.S. Opening my tent one morning, on the concrete driveway outside a broken building a month after the earthquake, a 16-year-old straight-A student stood in a long line of girls and women waiting to be evaluated. Solange’s dream was to become a nurse. In forty seconds, her life collapsed as her parents and siblings lay under the crumbled blocks of her home. She wandered the streets alone until an elderly man offered to help. He brought two men to rape her.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti. One month after the 2010 earthquake

The earthquake demolished safety networks of family and community. Women are fearful of going to get distributed goods protected by men who demand sex-for-aide. They have lost their husbands in the earthquake, and are forced to become financially independent without the skills or educational background. With children and orphans dependent on them, they are not free to relocate for work.

Sexual predation after societal devastation is not particular to Haiti. We tend not to think of ourselves as forces of nature, but we are. As agents of nature, when people experience acute trauma, some may multiply disaster by forcing their power onto others, out of psychological strain on the moral poise of being idle, angry at losing control, or frustrated with a lack of basic needs and uncertainty about the future. Indonesia had rape and abuse that threatened the physical and psychological safety of women and children in temporary camps after the tsunami. New Orleans endured rapes and sexual violence in the aftermath of Katrina.

Please refer to the story on Huffington Post to learn more or listen to my interview on NPR’s Here & Now with Robyn Young.