In Haiti, as in all Third World countries, life for women is a daily struggle, a constant battle against misery and the conditions of life. But here, it is also about a historic struggle, often hidden, against oppression, whether it be political oppression or oppressive social structures. The majority of Haitian heroines are anonymous; these women of different means and backgrounds have been engaged in the democratic change and have fought against a repression which always targets the weakest.
The Haitian countryside constantly shows the signs of woman's silent struggle. The peasant women, with their loads of water, coal, and bananas, walk along precarious paths pockmarked by the rain. Small-town merchant women, with their bundles of imported second-hand clothing and different resale items, sell on the congested sidewalks and in streets blocked by traffic and garbage. Austere dresses, large and colorful scarves, and acts of determination and grace are all images of the Haitian woman's life. The images are sometimes poetic; the statistics are not.
Even though birth rates have fallen from 6.3 children per woman in 1987 to 4.8 in the period 1992-1994, the threat of a dramatic population explosion continues to weigh on Haitian society, and especially on the women, who often bear the burden of child rearing alone. In 1988, life expectancy for Haitian women was 54.4 years, only 3 years more than for Haitian men. Compared to the rest of the Caribbean (average life expectancy of 70 years, with a gender disparity of up to 7 years), the data shows the difficulty of life for women in Haiti.
To give life is itself an important risk. In Haiti, the mortality rate for women in childbirth is the highest in the Western Hemisphere-1000 deaths per 100,000 births in 1996. The realities of deplorable sanitary conditions and incompetent medical staff push Haitian families who can afford it to send their pregnant women to the United States to give birth.
In 1990, 67.5% of Haitian women were illiterate; 62.7% of Haitian men were also illiterate. These statistics do not adequately demonstrate the reality of being a woman in Haiti. In fact, if academic discrimination isn't very significant at the level of primary school education (52% of boys enrolled and 48% of girls), a more accurate picture appears at higher academic levels. In sixth grade, girls represent 40% of the total number; the percentage drops to 33% in the twelfth grade, the last year. At the university level, Haitian women represent only 30% of the student population.
In terms of professional activity, women represent 31% of the total workers in agriculture, 46% of the manufacturing sector, 48% of the service industry, and a large 78% of small business. In fact, being a small businesswoman is not exactly an enviable position because the majority of these shopkeepers are women marginalized by their rural locale; they subsist in the urban areas with activities like retail sales which puts them at the mercy of wholesalers and usurers (with rates reaching up to 30% per month). In the industrial manufacturing sector, women are confined to the textile industries and assembly line activities in workshops whose working conditions are very often deplorable (see our Bulletin #7- July 1997).
Reflecting on the promotion of peace in society, it is also important to note the intensity of the violence directed towards women. Confronted with the repression of the popular movement by the authorities of the de facto regime (1991-1994), Haitian women involved in popular struggle had little choice: either live in exile or be blacklisted. Sexual aggression and brutality were often used by violent and militant men to get what they wanted from their families and their country.
Haitian women are severely targeted by the miserable structural violence of social structures, frequent violence in conjugal relationships, and direct confrontation with the forces of repression. At the same time, they don't have the time or means to behave as victims. The necessities of life are always present, imposing a harsh challenge on the use of each woman's energy. As the women of FAVILEK sing each Wednesday at the sit-ins of the victims of the coup d'etat at the Monument of Peace, Haitian women are the reeds. They are stomped down and burned with fire; and yet they bud at the first sign of rain.
The majority of the statistics were taken from The Haitian Woman in Numbers by Mireille Neptune Anglade (CIFD- 1995). Truly a remarkable work of compilation and synthesis which we are glad to salute.
The Soccer World Cup has been anxiously awaited for four years. The new Haitian Prime Minister does not draw as much attention as this, despite being in office only one year. The fervor provoked by each match of Brazil or Argentina might partially explain the population's relative disinterest in the current political happenings.
The negotiations occurring at the National Palace between the different parliamentary political organizations continue. On the electoral question, providing that the equilibrium of political forces permits it, the constitution of a new Provisional Electoral Council would help to contribute to a normalization of the existence of Haitian institutions.
While the preparation of the Raboteau trial seems to get bogged down in administrative mishaps, Haitian civil society puts up a fight against groups that seem to enjoy immunity from prosecution. On July 15th, at the Monument of Peace in Port-au-Prince, various victims of the organizations that carried out the coup d'etat staged their 38th sit-in. At the Place d'Armes a siimilar event took place.
An international signature campaign has been launched in order to regain the Haiti Armed Forces and FRAPH documents which were taken by the American government (FRAPH is the Revolutionary Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress- a neo-duvalierist movement whose members have been found guilty of numerous human rights violations during the coup period). These documents were taken away by the American troops in September of 1994, at the same time attempts were supposedly being made to restore democratic institutions. Washington argues it must keep the documents in order to protect American citizens who might be implicated in the material. These documents are, first and foremost, in general opinion, regarded as indispensable in the investigation of numerous human rights violations which occurred during the reign of the regime (September 1991- September 1994).
The Haitian victims' organizations should be receiving the considerable support of a visit by the militant human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez d'Esquivel. The Argentine will be accompanied by a delegation of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo; it was this non-violent mothers' movement which inspired the Monument of Peace sit-ins.
Haitian women are primary victims of violence and political repression. They are equally important as forces for social change. Having already relayed many of their initiatives, the Haiti team decided to dedicate their current bulletin to three women, all of whom are engaged at different levels in the struggle for a more just and harmonious society. We wanted to listen to them express their ideas and emotions on their lives, on life in general, and on their struggles, questions and hopes. In their own words they offer us their views, which run the spectrum from realism to idealistic optimism.
The PBI Haiti team (Alfred, Chantal, Stephane, and Thomas)
Translated by Nick Wilkinson
We met Rosanne for the first time in Germany in 1997. She had come to participate in a series of conferences put together by a solidarity group called HAITI-MED. She then kindly accepted the invitation to be involved with the training of future PBI volunteers in Haiti; her profound dedication, dynamism and warm personality have conquered us. In Haiti, Rosanne has founded a community health clinic for women (Klinik Sante Fanm) in the popular neighborhood of Carrefour-Feuilles, in Port-au-Prince. This facility is supported by APROSIFA (Association for the Promotion of the Integral Health of the Family). Rosanne currently works in the training programs of community health workers in the country.
Rosanne, thanks a lot for this discussion. First, would you briefly tell us about your development as a Haitian woman, from the time you were a little girl until your present incarnation as a activist?
I was born to a Haitian family. I grew up in my native village, Jeremie, where I attended primary and secondary schools. The philosophy of life I now hold has developed mostly from my family experiences. My father was very critical of Haitian society. He was a professor of Letters and Social Sciences. My mother was also very combative. She was a nurse and midwife. I inherited her dynamism, insight, and desire to work with deprived segments of the population. So, I inherited some of the values and personality traits of my parents which started me on my way towards this life of militancy.
I left Jeremie around 1982. I made a brief trip to North America but quickly returned as I had never wanted to live in a foreign country. Upon returning to Haiti, I studied at the School of Nurses in Port-au-Prince; it was here that I began to assert myself as a true activist. That was during the period of the move towards democracy, after Duvalier had departed. This period brought into question the role and legitimacy of all the institutional structures. It was in school that I developed what I will call organizational sensibilities. This led to the creation of an association, of which I am the president, which then integrated into the National Federation of Haitian Students. This provoked an explosion within the school which brought into question the role and the legitimacy of the institution of the school itself. After all that, I was shown the door because, in their words, I was the ringleader. So, that provoked quite a story! There you have it. That's a large part of what led me on the path to open militancy.
During the coup d'etat and after the nursing studies, I continued to fight within the Union of Nursing Personnel until 1992. As a nurse, I always preferred the holistic, naturalistic health approach. I always wanted to use methods which the community could interact with and understand as opposed to the formal, rigid hospital approach. This also has supported my activist work; it is also what led me to found the humanitarian clinic, the Klinik Sante Fanm, which is supported by APROSIFA. I continue to work, to fiercely question and analyze general social problems, especially the problem of health. I am active in trying to use my free time constructively in these areas. So, there it is- my personal history of militancy.
What does being a woman in contemporary Haiti signify for you? The difficulties, joys, and changes you have been able to witness since your childhood?
I have had to learn how to combat the aggression of this society. As a woman, I have suffered from more than a few attacks, especially psychological ones. I have had to face up to many different kinds of difficulties, but I have been able to overcome them because I was prepared for them by my family life. Also, in the course of my experiences, I have learned many things. I have collected the tools that have allowed me to resist.As for the problem of sexism, there is no woman in Haiti who has been sheltered from the situation of power. This power has been transferred by the collective forces of society to men in order to support and maintain the status quo. For sure, when you are active with these issues as a woman, you will be targeted much more than other apolitical women are. You are targeted by the aggressors.
In Haiti, in addition to these problems, there is great complexity in the overall web of social problems. At the same time, as a activist, I must verbally counter the specific attacks against women and lay out, for others to see, the logic of these systematic attacks. This logic aims to exploit women more in order to maintain the masculine hegemony. To arrive at a reconciliation between the fight for the liberation of women and the class struggle will be very difficult. This causes a lot of problems at the level of the global organizational movement as well as at the level of the women's organizational movement. However, little by little, we are coming to deal timidly with the issues of the rights of women. There are organizations of women who are now initiating activities to raise consciousness on these issues.
To respond more directly to your first question, being a woman in Haiti has many aspects. You must battle against the problem of sexism. You must battle against the socio-economic situation and its set of problems. You must battle against the absence of respect for the fundamental rights of the human person. You must fight for the right of all to good health care, to housing, and to eat. You must also fight against the absence of emotional security and safety. This last component does not exist for Haitian women. Even if a woman has a companion to protect her she can not feel emotionally secure because the logic of the society does not permit her mate to ensure her safety. It is all very complicated.
As a woman, you submit to reproduction. It is we who carry the babies and give birth to them. It is we who must breast feed them and care for them in the home. Because of the logic of the society and the laws of nature, we are forced to deal with all that. Due to these facts, the absence of social security and the inadequacy of emotional support, our situation is quite complicated.
I, as a lower middle class woman, must tell you that these problems present themselves to me in a way that is very different from the way they do to other classes of women. Women from the shantytowns or from marginalized, isolated rural areas will see things quite differently from a woman, like myself, who lives in a town and who has more access to food and to education for my children.
I can still speak of my activities in social intervention, where I come into close contact with these marginalized women, but I should be careful not to claim that I can speak for them.I know that being a woman at the level of the masses in Haiti, like the women in the shantytowns and those who are in the informal sector, means living sometimes without shelter and in sub-human conditions. One does not have access to education; one does not have the right to affection; and it goes on like this for women who live in poor neighborhoods and in isolated rural areas. The only rights one has are the rights to be hungry, to be sick, and to have many extremely difficult problems every day. This is what is to be a woman in Haiti.
To be a woman in Haiti is to run the risk of getting AIDS and to approach the level of having to prostitute one's self because the State is not willing to take responsibility for the welfare of its people. The State seems to have no concern in having a social politics that could make women feel secure. To be a woman in Haiti is to take the risk of being beaten by men. A woman exists in order to be harassed, as on all the radio stations and in the commercials. Above all, this is what it is to be a woman in Haiti.
To be a woman here is also to play the wholesale game. In the markets, the female vendors are there, mixed in with and on top of the heaps of garbage and refuse, in order to sell the products of wholesalers. They must sell the dirty and worn products thrown away by the United States. To be a woman in Haiti is to be familiar with all these things. So, it's complicated and difficult. And so, women have been completely reduced to being prostitutes and second hand or third hand retailers.
If I go back to your analysis, I see that you think that the fight of women must integrate itself with the more global struggle for social change. Has this struggle brought change in women's consciousness? Is there progress or stagnation?
Of course, the Haitian people's struggle shows not only negative results. What occurred at the time of the departure of Duvalier has to be regarded as positive. However, there was more of a 'removal' of government here than a real change in the system. This 'removal' did, in some ways, permit the emergence of organizations at many levels; for example, the student, feminist and community levels.I think this situation has induced the development of a critical mind in women in general.
Perhaps now we can speak of things which occurred before. There is a certain progress. We can speak about our problems on the radio. However, at the same time, we must not delude ourselves. We do not have a very structured women's movement. This is due to the types of organizations and their organizational weaknesses. Everywhere, there have been consciousness-raising propaganda campaigns but, perhaps, at the organizational level, they have not been consistent enough to help lead individuals in their communities to take on their responsibilities. As a result, instead of seeing structured movements capable of changing the situation, we see a lot of different types of populist movements.
I think there are some positive effects but, in order to advance the struggle, we have to take a hard look at the situation. We must analyze it in order to adapt our methods and approaches, especially at the level of community leadership. Do the models of leadership we have had since the beginning of these organizations correspond to the realities of what the people need? There are more than a few debates which need to be had in order to advance in the struggle.
Let's talk about the future. Speaking of your daughter, or of the next generation of women, what would you see as the primary changes necessary for Haitian women to advance in society?
Here again, I would say that we must look at and analyze the situation. For me, I think that to be an activist means not to merely express this activism at the meetings of an organization. It means that, each and every day, one must battle against all the aggressions in society resulting in the aftermath of the old regime. I have a little girl and, since she was born I have been trying to transfer the capabilities to her which will allow her to have a completely open and honest mind. It is not a question of 'training' the child in my way. It is more a way of giving her the tools so that she herself can identify the hypocritical and dangerous aspects of this society so that she can combat them more effectively. My daughter is 7 years old. She is trying to understand and make clear in her mind which things are important and which less useful. For example, she is learning about the aggression of consumer society. We don't go to the supermarket to buy items of conspicuous consumption (bars of chocolate or clothes like we see on television). We go to buy food, food which is good for our health.
I also have a son. From time to time, I discuss with my boy how society will try to shape him and what it will try to shape him into. As a man, society will project certain things onto him. I tell him that aspects of this training will cause him pain later and that it will also cause pain to women. So, he will have to be able to step back, to see that and react against it sometimes.
You cannot escape from the aggressive complexity of society. We do not have schools adapted to the realities of our country. We have schools with deformed adaptations- those programmed by the French and by the United States. For example, my son's grammar program is based on the reality of French society. So, I have to compromise with all that and struggle in order to adapt myself as an activist mother. It is very difficult to fight against these subtle aggressions as they, little by little, in school, slowly shape your daughter and son so that, when they are finished with school, they come out spouting things which do not correspond to the realities of the country.We, the countries of the South, do not have the capacity, in part owing to the attacks of the North, to create our own tools. We are obliged to use the tools of the North and it is with these tools that we confuse and alienate ourselves. It is a battle against the colonial mentality. Little by little, piece by piece, we will yet arrive at beginning our own Haitian vision of things!
In finishing, can you tell me which woman serves for you as an example, a role model? A woman which you admire, here in Haiti or elsewhere in the world?
It's quite difficult for me to respond to this question because I am quite distant from the idea of charisma. I am extremely wary of charismatic personalities. However, I greatly appreciated the story of Alexandra Kollontai and all the battles she has had. I have also somewhat appreciated figures like Winnie Mandela, which is not to say I am not also critical of her. While I am generally distrustful of charismatic figures, I greatly appreciate the determination of many women which I have discovered in all the books I have read. I appreciate as well the contributions of the famous figures yet I do not idealize them. And, of course, I can equally appreciate the contributions and writings of men!
Translated by Nick Wilkinson
Mathilde Fleurvil participated in a Training of Trainers organized by the Haiti team in December 1997. Since then she has been a member of the Trainers Group for Peace with whom we co-facilitate workshops. Mathilde currently works for CARITAS in Gonaives (Artibonite Department).
Hello, Mathilde. To start off with, would you briefly explain the path you've followed between your childhood and your current activities?
I do not really have a family to speak of. My father died when I was 10 years old. I had been adopted at a very young age. Currently, I live with my niece and nephew.I carried out my studies in Gonaives, from nursery school to 12th grade. I did some sewing also. Briefly, I took computer classes. It's difficult to remember my academic path exactly because I did lots of different jobs in between!My political and social engagement truly began in 1983 with the JOC (Christian Working Youth) as an activist for justice. Then, I continued with ACO (Catholic Workers Action) where I truly began to work for the betterment of the conditions of women. This is basically what I am doing now with CARITAS, in partnership with community organizations.
Where did you get your desire to work with issues of human rights?
I have always wanted to work with issues of human rights because, here in Haiti, people do not have the right to education or justice. Through civic education, I am trying to throw light on the subject of human rights, and what it means for the general population.
What are the difficulties you have met with as a woman in Haiti? Women in Haiti are despised and badly treated. Many do not have husbands and have to raise their children alone. For me, they are very courageous. As the fathers have abandoned their responsibilities, the women work very hard in order to be able to pay for schooling and food for their children. If I were to define the Haitian woman, I would say she is poor, courageous and extremely respectful to her children.
How do you see the woman's struggle in Haiti?
The women's movements in Haiti are very limited because, in many cases, the women who demonstrate for feminism are not able, ready, willing or educated enough to fight the battle.Many of these movements are full of bourgeois women who are removed from the women activists on the street. Some of these movements are like political groups simply trying to get a name for themselves.
For example, when International Woman's Day was commemorated in Port-au-Prince on the 8th of March, you didn't see any poor women on television. You saw only women who never leave Port-au-Prince, women who have no idea about life in the countryside.
However, despite all that, there is a woman's struggle. So, through my work with CARITAS, I am trying to change the credit situation for women so that they can meet their needs. Only a derisory amount of credit is given to women (1.5% of all credit). If women go to the usurer (one calls this the "stab of the dagger" in Haiti), they have to accept an interest rate of 20%. This issue is a part of the struggle. The woman's struggle is a daily one. If we want to make progress, there is still a lot more to do.
What are your wishes for the next generation of women?
Of course, I hope that the condition of women will be better, but this must be struggled for from where we are today as it will not happen by itself. We are working in the short term on constructing free community clinics and schools and on creating a good system of credit, which, we hope, will have a positive influence on the future. My individual wish is that women can achieve complete independence in order to successfully raise their children and live their lives as they see fit.
Could you tell me the name of a woman, past or present, who is an example for you? Catherine Flon. She was a very brave woman, a very hard worker. She's the one who sewed the first Haitian flag at Arcahaie. There is also Claire Heureuse, the woman of Dessalines, who led numerous battles.
The interview was in Creole.
Translation into French by the
Haiti team Translation into English by Nick Wilkinson
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