More than 330 women and girls between the ages of 6 and 67 in four of the country’s departmentshave been the victims of rape, harrassment and parental irresponsibility between January and June 2006. These people have been received in the ‘Douvanjou’ centres – centres providing safe havens and medical, legal and psychological support to women victims of violence – set up by the women’s organisation, Solidarité des Femmes Haïtiennes (SOFA), in the West, Artibonite, South-East and the Grand’Anse.

In the West department, mostly in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Martissant, SOFA has registered 212 victims. Thirty seven were treated in the Artibonite, 36 in the South-East, and 45 in the Grand’Anse. The organisation notes that the recent resumption of violence in Martissant means that information concerning the month of June cannot be collected. In an open letter sent to various parts of the government, including the president and the parliament, SOFA states that women and girls are “Victims of all sorts of abuses relating to the situation of political and structural violence targetting women in Haitian society”. SOFA salutes the courage of these victims, and calls on the State to curb this systematic violence.