Haiti

In the face of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian catastrophe, WPHF is supporting local women’s organizations in Haiti to end violence against women and girls and protect human rights.

Our Work

In Haiti, WPHF is mobilizing financing through its latest emergency appeal for local women’s organizations responding to the converging political, economic and gang violence crises. The WPHF and Spotlight Initiative partnership is currently channeling programmatic and institutional financing to grassroots women’s organizations working to end violence against women and promote human rights and gender equality in crisis and conflict settings.

WPHF has also supported local civil society organizations in Haiti to respond to the COVID-19 global pandemic to ensure that local women’s rights organizations could sustain their critical activities and life-saving services to vulnerable women and girls. Projects under this funding window responded to the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including heightened poverty, unemployment, health and protection risks, particularly sexual violence and exploitation.

This financing is strengthening the capacity of women’s rights groups and social movements – including those representing youth and groups facing intersecting forms of discrimination – to advance progress on women’s empowerment, gender equality and women’s contributions to peace. But women-led and women’s rights organizations in Haiti need more support.

Our Partners

WPHF has thus far supported 30 projects implemented by 40 women-led and women’s rights civil society organizations in Haiti:

2021 Earthquake Response

• Association des Parents de Personnes Handicapées du Sud (APPHS)   on a project to reduce the impact of the 2021 earthquake on the functioning of APPHS through the improvement of its technical operations, the capacity building of members, the production of management and emergency response tools, and the development of risk mitigation strategies and indicators.

WPHF and Spotlight Initiative Partners: Ending Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Against Women and Girls in Crisis Settings and Contributing to an Enabling Environment for Women Peace and Security

• Cellule d’Appui Stratégique de Développement Agricole (CASDA) – together with Action Concertée pour le Développement Agricole et Environnemental Durable (ACDAED) – on a project to raise awareness of existing laws that protect women’s rights through sensitization campaigns, including radio and television programs, while strengthening survivors’ access to psychological, health, legal and economic support through the establishment of a specialized committee to inform survivors of their rights and direct them to the appropriate care.
• Solidarité des Femmes du Nord-Est (SOFNE) on a project to support the implementation of awareness campaigns targeting local authorities, municipal leaders, civil society organizations and the local population on gender issues and VAWG while strengthening the complaint and support systems for survivors through a reception and support center, as well as by enhancing knowledge of women and girls of their rights and how to respond to violence.
• YWCA Haïti on a project to provide women and girls with capacity-building workshops on SGBV and SRHR, while ensuring survivors’ access to emergency, psychosocial support, SRHR services and providing them with the necessary financial resources to complete care.
• Association 4 Chemins – together with Négès Mawon – on a project that enhances the protection and reintegration of formerly detained women into their communities using dance and theater to raise awareness on women’s rights and VAWG, while supporting women through individual and group support sessions, economic empowerment initiatives, awareness-raising sessions on their rights, and training on the legal framework, complaints, and compensation procedures for former detainees.
• Réseau Sud pour la Défense des Droits Humains (RSDDH) – together with KOFASID, KOSOFADS and AFHS – on a project to facilitate survivors’ access to the labor market by establishing a vocational training center to increase their legal protection through legal assistance programs as well as to raise public awareness on VAWG.
• Mouvement pour l’Intégration et l’Émancipation des Femmes Handicapées (MIEFH) – together with GRAPRODH – on a project to reduce violence against women and girls living with disabilities by fighting gender stereotypes and discrimination through awareness-raising campaigns and the dissemination of messages, leaflets, and radio programs on SGBV while improving the quality of services provided to survivors through building the capacities of CSOs, youth organizations, psychologists, justice officials and police officers on SGBV case management and strengthening survivors’ knowledge of their rights and ensuring their socio-economic empowerment.
• Rapha House International on a project to build the resilience of IDP women and girls affected by gang violence by providing them with improved access to health care and psychosocial support, safe shelters and training on risk mitigation and life skills, including by facilitating their access to housing, sanitation, and economic opportunities through the building of management skills and providing financial and logistical support to launch their businesses.
• Zanmi Lasante on a project to provide women’s rights groups and civil society organizations with the financial and technical support to ensure coalition building and the promotion of gender equality in Haiti, improving the availability, accessibility, and quality of SGBV services through individual and group support sessions while extending its currently proposed medical services and delivering comprehensive sex education programs to young women and men.
• Association des Femmes de Madeline (AFM) on a project calling on local communities to adopt respectful attitudes and promote gender equality through awareness campaigns, the active engagement of community leaders, women’s organizations, and survivors as agents of change, while providing survivors with holistic medical, psychosocial, legal, socio-economic support and coordinating local prevention and protection strategies and responses to SGBV.
• Mouvement des Femmes pour le Développement de la Grande Anse (MOFEDGA) on a project to strengthen and sustain its existence during the COVID-19 pandemic and reinforce the effectiveness of its activities, helping the organization adapt to the COVID-19 crisis by procuring the necessary IT equipment and cover rental and other staffing-related expenses to continue to serve its community.
• Association des Femmes de Madeline (AFM) on a project to sustain its activities and adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic by supporting the establishment of a proactive information system, including a website and telephone line to facilitate and improve the organization’s support service and raise public awareness on gender-based violence, as well as strengthen its administrative and financial systems to prepare for future hazards and emergencies.
• Haiti Adolescent Girls Network (HAGN) on a project to strengthen its operations allowing it to continue delivering programs that empower, protect and strengthen the leadership of women and girls. This grant will help to strengthen its communication capacities, shift its activities online during the outbreak and enable the organization to develop risk mitigation strategies and sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) prevention plans.
• Fédération des Femmes du Bas-Artibonite (FEFBA) on a project to strengthen its organizational governance system to better support women and girl survivors of SGBV, while contributing to covering staff salaries and the improvement of reception centers of community-based organization offices.
• Alternative des Femmes organisées de Port-à-Piment (ALTERFOP) on a project to improve its communication with the local population and increase access of women and girl survivors of violence to basic services by covering rental fees of the organization’s headquarters for two years and providing ground transportation and IT equipment, which will be used to train young women on IT and SGBV case management.
• Haitian Relief Organization (JPHRO) – together with Fanm Solid, Fanm Grandans, and Association des Femmes en Action de la Grand’Anse – on a project to establish a comprehensive community-based safety network to prevent and mitigate SGBV by providing local CSOs with technical and financial assistance to lead awareness-raising campaigns, strengthen survivors’ access to specialized services, support women’s and girls’ groups to increase their leadership in GBV response  and strengthen local CSO monitoring and evaluation capacities to guarantee high-quality programs.

WPHF COVID-19 ERW Partners: Responding to and Surviving COVID-19 in Crisis Settings

• Fondation pour la Santé Reproductrice et l’Education Familiale (FOSREF) — together with Refuge Femmes Haiti — on a joint project to mobilize local women’s organizations to raise awareness on the pandemic and the alarming increase of VAW, while supporting vulnerable women and populations – including people with AIDS and members of the LGBT community – with cash, strengthening their access to maternity and other SRHR services.
• Union des Femmes à Mobilité Réduite d’Haiti (UFMORH) on a project to provide economic resources and cash transfers to women affected by the crisis, while ensuring that public health messages raising awareness of COVID-19 are delivered to all women, especially women with disabilities, through social media content, radio and television spots.

Explore the Full List of WPHF COVID-19 Emergency Response Window Partners Around the World

Background

Haiti is currently grappling with a multi-layered economic, political, security, and humanitarian crisis. Following the devastating earthquake in January 2010 and the impact of Hurricane Matthew, which struck the country in October 2016, the country was left in deep distress, with reconstruction efforts failing to address the systemic problems underlying its extreme socio-economic inequality and endemic political and gang violence. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 and the widespread destruction caused by another earthquake in August pushed the poverty-stricken country to the brink of collapse.

Since the end of July 2020, Haitians have taken to the streets to protest the poor living conditions, the ongoing political stalemate, and the government’s handling of the economy and growing violence. Insecurity, rising costs, and the fuel distribution crisis, driven by the elimination of fuel subsidies and exacerbated by gang activity, remain at the heart of these protests.

In this context of widespread insecurity, people find themselves trapped amid intense clashes in violence-stricken neighborhoods or unable to move freely to the capital, as main roads remain under gang control. A recent looting of a UN World Food Programme warehouse in Gonaives, intended to provide emergency assistance to Haiti’s most vulnerable families, has also put the country’s food security at stake during the peak of the hurricane season.

Despite Haiti ratifying most international conventions on women’s rights and the Haitian Constitution’s recognition of gender equality, along with the adoption of laws combating violence against women and girls in all its forms, women’s and girls’ protection remains a serious concern. With poverty and unemployment on the rise, they are particularly vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence, exploitation, and rape, which is being used systematically by gangs and other violent actors. For those living in shelters, these risks add up to other vital concerns for their safety and freedom of movement.

Facing all these challenges, women’s civil society organizations are making significant efforts to tackle all forms of violence against women and girls, as well as to fight for the recognition of their rights, including access to land, credit, health services, education, and decision-making processes. Many times, however, the work of these organizations is impeded by poor funding opportunities and gaps at institutional, operational, and collective levels.

Our Vision

In Haiti, WPHF aims to ensure the financing and coordination of local civil society organizations working to empower women as key actors to end violence against women, protect human rights and respond to  COVID-19 and other political, economic and humanitarian crises, advancing progress on women’s contributions to peace across the country.