ARTICLE - WOMEN IN HAITI

AT A GLANCE: WOMEN IN HAITI
(UNIFEM - United Nations Development Fund For Women)

The massive earthquake of January 2010 in Haiti is estimated to have left more than 200,000 people dead and 1.5 million homeless. The most affected cities are Port-au-Prince, Leogane, Petit Goave and Jacmel, which are characterized by widespread destruction of infrastructure and disruption of even the basic services, such as shelters, electricity, water, transport and health and security services.

Women have been particularly affected by the disaster. Several indicators allow the assumption that approximately two-thirds of those killed were women, due to their poor housing conditions.

Huge loss of jobs, capital and economic resources have also resulted from the devastating earthquake. In times of natural disasters, women and girls are also at heightened risk of violence, in particular sexual violence, because of the lack of shelter and security. Today, six months after the disaster, as large populations continue to live in squalid temporary shelters built of sheets, the threat of violence is constant. Women have to share latrines without lights; they must bathe in public; and they are forced to sleep next to strangers after losing contact with family members.

FACTS AND FIGURES
Women represent 52 percent of the Haitian population and play a key role in ensuring the survival of their families. Even before the earthquake, decades of political instability, pervasive poverty and gender inequities had taken a heavy toll on the rights and security of women. There is a high prevalence of domestic and sexual violence in the country:

- The 2006 National Census revealed that one out of three women have experienced violence.

- HIV and AIDS levels are high as well as cultural taboos with regard to these issues.

Women of Haiti also carry the disproportionate burden of care for children and other family dependents:

- Nearly 45 percent of households are headed by women.

- Illiteracy levels in Haiti are the highest in the Latin American and Caribbean region.

- According to the UNDP's Human Development Report 2009, female adult literacy rate stands at 64 percent.

Most women are employed in the informal sector and earn less than half of what men earn:

- According to UNDP's Human Development Report 2009, the average annual income of women in Haiti is US$626, compared with US$1,695 for men.

- Haitian women engage mainly in agricultural work or as small-scale entrepreneurs and market vendors. Access to capital and other resources for small-scale women farmers and entrepreneurs whose economic activities have been crippled by the earthquake are essential.

- In the early recovery phase after the earthquake, programmes such as Cash for Work and Food for Work provided employment to around 200,000 people, 35 percent being women.

- Much more needs to be done. There is urgent need to address creation of jobs to restart the economy, with specific focus on single women headed household.

Rigid gender roles and inequalities in the Caribbean island often prevent women from being included in political decision-making and increase their vulnerability to high levels of gender-based violence:

- Women comprise less than 5 percent of parliamentarians in Haiti.

- Violence in public spaces takes a toll on women's ability to participate and contribute fully to public life.

- Many women consider participation in political life to be a dangerous activity.