Haiti: Women face violent past

After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, stories of the disaster dominated international news media. Journalists rushed to report on the wreckage. Photographers scrambled for shots of the rubble. Aid agencies struggled to overcome obstacles to sending humanitarian aid.

As an international women’s human rights organization that works in partnership with local women, we at MADRE immediately reached out to our grassroots partners. Since the 1990s, we’d worked with women leaders there to provide medical care, counseling, and legal support to women targeted with rape because of their advocacy during the pro-democracy movement. So when the earthquake struck, we were able to mobilize quickly to make sure women and their families had the basics for survival—food, water purification tablets, and plastic sheeting for shelter. Read Article