Displacement in the Caribbean nation has reached record levels, with nearly 600,000 people forced to leave their homes this year – double the number from last year. This makes Haiti the country with the highest number of people displaced by violence.
Support from NGO TOYA
Louise and Chantal* both received support from Haitian NGO TOYA, a partner of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the regional branch of the World Health Organization (WHO).
People continue to flee their homes in Port-au-Prince due to gang-related violence.
Louise, 47, is a single mother of five. Only one of her children, an 11-year-old, is with her now, while the other four are scattered across the country. “We were chased away by bandits; they burned our house,” she said in testimony collected by a PAHO official.
Her mother recently passed away from hypertension and stress from repeated forced relocations. “My mother had to relocate twice in a short period of time,” she lamented.
‘I had a big setback in my life’
Chantal, 56, a single mother of six, shares Louise’s grief. Her home was also burned down. “The robbers raped me and my daughter. I contracted HIV as a result. They beat me and I lost four teeth. The father of my children can no longer care for them. Now I am destitute. I have taken a huge step back in my life and I don’t know how to recover,” she explained.
A funeral procession passes through the Great Cemetery in downtown Port-au-Prince.
“The anxiety took everything out of me; I almost went crazy. I even thought about drinking bleach to kill myself after those events,” she testified.
Louise stayed in another relocation site before arriving at Carl Brouard Square in Port-au-Prince. During this time, the TOYA Foundation helped her by providing kits with essential items and money to allow her to start a small business.
However, this respite was short-lived. One day, “bandits” invaded the place in Carl Brouard Square and once again, she lost everything. “My business, my belongings, I couldn’t take anything during the attack,” she said.
The anxiety took everything out of me; I was half crazy. I even thought about drinking bleach to kill myself after the incident.
— Chantal
Chantal went to the TOYA Foundation facility, where she received psychosocial support, training courses and funding.
‘Life is not over’
“During the training sessions, TOYA psychologists taught me what life is and its importance. They showed me that life is not over for me, that I can become what I want to be and that I am still valuable. I received significant support from everyone at TOYA,” she emphasized.
She now lives with a relative and some of her children. Some of her children are in the province, including her teenage daughter, who was raped with her.
“Thank God she is not infected with HIV. But she has been hurt ever since. She doesn’t want to return to Port-au-Prince. She was supposed to graduate this year but had to stop everything because of this incident,” Chantal recounted.
She said she faced a lot of discrimination from her family because of her HIV-positive status. “They thought I could infect them because I lived under the same roof,” she said, noting that she continued taking the medication without any problems.
Despite this difficult situation, she is still focused on life and how she can earn money to send home to her children who live scattered in many places.
Women in Port-au-Prince visit a mobile clinic supported by UNFPA.
‘I want to see my child grow up’
As for Louise, she currently has no support because she has lost her only source of income, her business.
“All I want is to live in peace,” she said. “Life in the locations is really difficult. The classrooms where we slept were flooded every time it rained. We had to wait for the rain to stop before we could clean up and find a small space to rest and try to sleep.”
It had been a long time since Louise had been able to visit some of the children she had sent to the provinces. “I can’t go there because of the high cost of living and the robbers who extort money from passengers on the way,” she explained. “I’m tired of running away under gunfire. We are always at risk of being attacked at any time.”
In this difficult context, Louise’s biggest goal “is to live”.
“All I want is to live,” Chantal repeated. She still suffers from high blood pressure “because the tension in Haiti is really unbearable.”
“But I still have to continue my business because I have many mouths to feed. I want to “see my children grow up; I want to see them succeed in life,” she said.
*Names have been changed to protect their identities.
