Haiti Gender Shadow Report: Ensuring Haitian Women's Participation
and Leadership in All Stages of National Relief and Reconstruction
Haiti Equality Collective
2010
Download
the full pdf version.
Executive
Summary
Following
the devastating January 12, 2010 earthquake, Haiti's government, supported by the World Bank, led an
ambitious Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA)-an operative blueprint for
reconstruction. Astonishingly, the PDNA failed to address gender issues. This
Gender Shadow report (GSR) provides the missing gender content for PDNA
policymakers, donors, civil society groups and all stakeholders involved in Haiti's reconstruction. It follows a parallel outline to the
PDNA by presenting issues related to governance and accountability, environment
and disaster risk reduction, social sectors, infrastructure, the economy and
cross-cutting themes.
Written
by women from diverse backgrounds working both in grassroots communities in
Haiti and in the international arena, the GSR offers stakeholders a set of
human rights-based gender interventions to round out current redevelopment
efforts and achieve greater inclusion and success.
The
motivation of this GSR is the imperative for women's full participation and
leadership in all phases of the reconstruction of Haiti, as mandated by UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and
other internationally recognized standards that were reprioritized at a recent
Millennium Development Goal summit. These standards require that a gender
perspective be integrated into ongoing post-disaster and reconstruction
planning at every stage: assessment, planning, implementation, monitoring and
evaluation. Overcoming gender discrimination requires implementing the legal
policy architecture that upholds the full range of Haitian women's human rights,
including social and economic rights. Women's political and community
leadership and care-giving work must be recognized and supported by policy and
program mandates, as well as by resource commitments, that enable women to play
meaningful, sustained and formal roles in the recovery process. Ultimately,
this is the only way to rebuild Haiti on a more equitable and disaster-resilient foundation.
The
remainder of this Executive Summary presents key recommendations to address
gender issues in Haiti's reconstruction.
Key
recommendations for policymakers, donors, civil society groups and all PDNA
stakeholders:
I.
Methodically require consultation with women and women's groups in every
post-disaster reconstruction project and all disaster preparedness planning.
II.
Immediately strengthen IDP camp security, shelters and services by targeting
gender-based violence, malnutrition and disease.
III.
Implement and enforce gender equity and anti-discrimination laws, in
particularly against sexual violence, sexual harassment and human trafficking.
IV.
Create a National Redevelopment Gender Advisory Task Force comprised of
government officials from disparate ministries, civil society members and
grassroots groups.
- Standardize
gender mainstreaming across all public planning through system-wide gender
disaggregated data.
- Require
that every new financial pledge integrate gender equity indicators.
- Commit
to transparency through the public dissemination of materials.
V.
Clarify women's unique post-disaster vulnerabilities and integrate them into
infrastructure reconstruction, environmental strategies and national economic
planning.
- Target
the security, economic and social needs of women as heads of households,
income generators and caretakers when designing projects aimed at
rebuilding national infrastructure.
- Identify,
quantify and compensate economic losses where women are especially
vulnerable in all housing, land use and construction planning.
- Develop
a road grid and transportation sector that prioritizes the security,
livelihood and household responsibility needs of women and girls.
- Monitor
and support women-owned businesses.
VI.
Create a health system that prioritizes the sexual and reproductive needs of
women and their roles as care-takers for children, the elderly and disabled
people.
- Support
the establishment of community-based family wellness centers and include
men in family planning discussions.
- Strengthen
linkages that address the vulnerabilities of women and children to sexual
trafficking, sexual violence and the contraction of sexual transmitted
diseases.
- Increase investment in HIV/ AIDS prevention and
awareness.
- Prioritize
mental health services and services to disabled people.
VII.
Transition to a national education system that provides free primary education
and protects children from domestic servitude and illegal labor practices.
- Isolate
and address factors preventing females from equitable education, such as
poverty, forced or voluntary prostitution, violence and sexual abuse,
teenage pregnancy, early marriage, household responsibilities, and
inadequate hygiene supplies.
- Prioritize the educational needs of street children by
providing mobile libraries, health and sexual education, recreational events
and parent trainings.