15941: Racine: Domestic Violence - Terror Against Women in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

News reports this morning include the following - 34 year old Haitian
immigrant Jean-Claude Jules killed his "live-in girlfriend" in Braintree,
Massachusetts.  It appears that he stabbed her to death.  She worked at New England
Specialty Hospital, and her name has not been released pending notification of the
next of kin.  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts apparently finds it necessary
to provide Jules with a Creole-speaking interpreter for his arraignment, which
implies to me that Jules is a relatively recent arrival.

"Domestic violence" isn't a strong enough term for what happens to women in
Haiti.  Violence (including rape) as a terror tactic against women is rampant
in Haitian culture, no matter how unpopular it is to acknowledge this fact.  I
live in a rural area outside of Jacmel, and I quite literally have witnessed
women being beaten by their domestic partner while the men of the neighborhood
stood by and screamed, "Good!  Hit her again!  Hit her HARDER!  Kill her!
Make her shit!"

Rape, and gang rape, is widely prevalent.  Girls as young as age ten are
targeted and there is no such thing as "statutary rape".  I can't count the number
of times that men have threatened me, personally, with rape, simply because I
dare to own my own livestock, manage my own pastures, and saddle my own
horses - and concurrently remove men's cows and horses from my pastures when they
tie them there to steal my grass.  Apparently as a woman I should own nothing
for myself.  Certainly I don't know any woman at all in Jacmel who both owns
and cares for her own livestock, except maybe for a chicken or two.

My domestic partner, also Haitian man, quite soberly advises me to always
carry my machete when I go into the pastures, and since he is in a better
position to overhear the comments of the men in the area, I guess he has reason to
warn me.  I don't know what I would do if I had to use that machete!  If I did,
I would certainly be locked up, the police would not recognize my right to
self-defense.  (My domestic partner himself has sort of slowly accepted the fact
that I am an American woman, financially independant, and am therefore going
to do pretty much as I please.  In fact, after two years, he's started to see
things from my perspective a little bit.  But he's unusual in his neighborhood
for a variety of reasons, not just his attitude toward his domestic partner.)

The police?  Forget it.  Jacmel police are typical of the HNP, they think
they are the judge!  If they decide that the woman "deserved" a beating (which is
always), even if a judge has written a warrant they won't execute it.  The
man could walk down the street in front of him and all they will do is make
anti-woman jokes with him.  Things that make a woman deserve a beating, in their
view, include: asking a man to use a condom during sex, refusing to have sex
with a man if he has given the woman any money or food at all ever in her life,
standing up to a man who is verbally abusing her, spending time outside the
home (even to have one's hair braided!) without the man's knowledge and consent.

Rape is excused on the ground that, "He loves you!  It's not his fault!  He's
a man, he has needs.  He didn't hurt you - didn't you like it?  It wasn't
sweet?"  These comments are usually followed by sexual invitations from the
police officers, I am not making this up.

Recently I went to the Jacmel police to report the theft of three of my
goats.  Their response was to speculate raucously on the probable size of my
boyfriend's penis, and the likely effect of his penis on my vagina.  I'm not
kidding!  I went to the highest ranking officer I could find and reported all this,
he called the offending lower-ranking officers up on the carpet, and they
laughed in the poor man's face, literally refusing point blank to obey him.  With a
climate of disrespect like that in the Commisariat, what can the average
Haitian woman expect?

The health care professionals?  Nah.  Go to St. Michael's hospital right now
and check all the women age 16-40, I've done this informally three times, and
each of those three times over one third of those women were in the hospital
due to illnesses resulting from attacks by men.  I'm talking about serious
injuries, broken bones, severe burns caused when the man sprays a mouthful of
gasoline on the woman and sets her on fire, internal injuries resulting from
beatings with sacks full of rocks.  But no health care professional has ever so
much as gone on community radio to talk about the disastrous public health
consequences of violence against women.

Religious leaders, Christians, are not much help.  Catholics preach that
women must "obey" men (which means submit to sex at any time and to violence
likewise), and never yet has a Catholic priest in Jacmel made violence against
women the subject of a sermon.  To them, Vodou is a worse evil.  Protestants
likewise!  If a badly beaten woman goes to a pastor for help, he will preach
"obedience" again, and tell her to "resign herself" and to pray.  That is all the
help she will get.

Vodou is rather more useful.  There are lwa which specifically disapprove of,
and protect women from, violence by men.  Houngans and Mambos are much more
likely to intervene on behalf of an abused woman, especially if that woman is a
member of our congregation.  We need our hounsis and our Mambos in good
condition, able to work, able to dance, attractive and healthy!  The men of my
congregation are strictly forbidden to hit women and they know that if they do I
will come after them, but I am an American Mambo and bring some of my own
values to my congregation.

There is, however, no common consensus that violence and terror against women
are a culture-wide problem in Haiti, the focus is on each individual case,
and the perception is that this is a "private, personal, individual matter".
Some women's organizations in Port-au-Prince, led very often by diasporan
Haitian women with some exposure to American feminist thinking, militate against
violence against women, but there membership is relatively small.  There is just
no grass-roots movement in Haiti by women, against violence.

Peace and love,

Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen

"Se bon ki ra" - Good is rare
     Haitian Proverb

The VODOU Page - http://members.aol.com/racine125/index.html