22381: Nlbo: Haiti not alone in Rape and Domestic Violence (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Nlbo@aol.com

Rape and domestic violence are not exclusively endemic to Haiti. Read the
statistics. In the United States, isn't it every thirty seconds a woman is
beaten.   Why all those books, Tv shows, websites, hotlines, shelters for abused
women? Haitian men are not the only men who abuse women. This is a patriarchal
society dominated and ruled by men. Western countries had established laws,
policies, and legal consequences for men who commit violence against women.  In
many non-western countries, including Haiti such legality is not yet in place.
Haitian women organizations have been trying to address the issue of  violence
in the last decades. I know in Boston there is a woman agency who focuses on
domestic volience.

What Haitian women need to do is to form stronger coalitions with other
national and international women's organizations to systematically and globally
address women's issues including rape and other violence. Writing in major
mainstream newspapers and in cyberspace which I notice most Haitian women don't do
is an important mean to voice women's concerns.
Nekita