Sexual violence in Haiti 'severely underreported,' 'largely unpunished' UN says

A report published Thursday on the situation in Haiti, which is facing intense gang violence, by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights found that sexual violence there is “severely underreported."

The report said that according to the U.N. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), gangs in the Caribbean country have used “sexual violence to spread fear, subjugate and punish the population.” 

“Sexual violence remains severely underreported due to community stigma, the salient threat of retaliation by perpetrators, insufficiency of healthcare and psychosocial services for survivors, and lack of trust in the justice system,” the report reads. ‘Even when such incidents are reported, impunity for sexual violence is widespread.”

In a press release, the OHCHR also referred to sexual violence in Haiti as “largely unpunished.”

The report stated that OHCHR registered the deaths of at least 4,451 people in Haiti in 2023 due to gang violence, with 3,801 of them being men, 538 of them being women and 112 of them being children. Between early January and late February of this year, 686 people “not involved in the violent exchanges taking place” were killed, according to the report.

“Tackling insecurity must be a top priority to protect the population and prevent further human suffering. It is equally important to protect institutions essential to the rule of law, which have been attacked to their very core,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in the press release.

Haiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, announced that he will resign from his position earlier this month as gang violence has raged in the country.

“The government that I’m running cannot remain insensitive in front of this situation. There is no sacrifice that is too big for our country,” Henry said in a statement on video, according to The Associated Press. “The government I’m running will remove itself immediately after the installation of the council.”