The Struggle for LGBT Rights in Haiti

A radio essay by Della Kilroy — Aired on World Report, RTE Radio One

In a small humid room in Haiti’s bustling capital Port au Prince a young woman called Marie shows me the knife she is carrying. It’s for protection she tells me, in case she gets attacked. Timidly she also introduces me to her friend, a young man acting as her bodyguard, a further measure to try and protect herself from possible violence.

Marie has come to meet me in offices belonging to FACSDIS, an organization that fights against the discrimination and sexual violence faced by LGBT people in Haiti. You wouldn’t notice the office, hidden away in one of the cities suburbs there’s no exterior sign identifying the organisation, as a precaution against possible harassment.

Marie tells me she was attacked and raped in broad daylight on her way to get food, a gang of men covered her mouth and dragged her away in the middle of the street. She herself didn’t choose to come out and identify herself as a lesbian, but when someone in her neighbourhood told people her community she became victim to continuous attacks

“They say it is devilish and that I am a bad omen”. “Family and neighbours hate me,” she says.

On the way to their office, through Haiti’s busy dusty roads, recently marred with large scale protests and civil unrest, we pass a rainbow flag promoting gay rights… written on it says end LGBT discrimination… yet someone has graffitied over it, crossing out the end Discrimination. A clear sign of the mood in the nation.

LGBT rights are not of concern to the majority on Haitians holding deep-rooted cultural opposition to gay people. The major churches are firm in their condemnation of homosexuality, gay Haitians are frequent targets of attacks and harassment, and the police are often unsympathetic to victims of anti-gay violence.

Haiti’s LGBT community has long existed in relative secrecy, but, in the last few years they’ve become progressively more organized and active, pushing back for the first time. As the LGBT community have become more visible, so too have the attacks.

In 2016 organisers called off a pride festival celebrating Haiti’s Afro-Caribbean lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community because of threats of violence and government opposition.

Close to 9 years after the 2010 magnitude 7 earthquake devastated the nation’s capital some say anti-LGBT sentiment has increased. Many of the organizations that rushed to Haiti to help were Christian evangelical groups and for LGBT activists some believe that Christian fundamentalism spread, along with anti-LGBT ideals.

While there are no laws prohibiting homosexuality in Haiti the country doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, civil unions or similar institutions. Since 2017 two proposed anti-LGBT laws have been pending in Parliament having passed through the Senate. While the legislation has stalled, if progressed it could formalize a ban on same-sex marriage, and prohibit public demonstrations in favour of LGBT rights.

In the FACSDIS office, their volunteers and support workers accompany victims of violence throughout the judicial process. Marie shows me the scars on her ankles and arms from a sexually violent attack in her own neighbourhood. She went to FACSDIS for support but feared to going to the police to seek justice because the attackers, men that remain living in her community, have threatened to kill her if she does.

Merci Antoinette works in the organisation and tells me this is a common occurrence. People here are raised to think that gay people are evil she tells me… Even the merest suspicion that a person may be LGBT can place their life directly at risk.

For Antoinette, she was 22 and living at home when her family found out she was gay. Kicked out by her parents she fled to her friend’s house, but when they found out, she was kicked out again. With nowhere to go she begged her parents to take her back in. With her eyes welling up, she tells me they did, but she was no longer treated as their daughter.

They say “God did not send women to be with women.” She tells me “they put God into the situation to shame you to the point that you don’t feel like living anymore… it’s just hate hate hate hate.”

It’s worse for trans people, Antoinette says. They have to carry a change of clothes everywhere and disguise their identity because of fear of attacks. When I ask again about access to justice she tells me impunity for perpetrators is rampant in Haiti’s courts.

Across the city I meet Mario Joseph, Managing Attorney of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), an organistaion working to protect the human rights of Haiti’s poor by providing free legal aid. He says the Haitian Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantee equal protection for LGBT people. Yet he sees cases where LGBT crimes have been dismissed, victims stigmatized and denied full access to justice.

While Haiti’s UNAIDS organisation, officials of other humanitarian organizations have been pushing the government to be more active in countering anti-LGBT prejudice. Any progress has been slow and barely visible to date.

In 2017 a nationwide survey commissioned by Haiti’s Health Ministry with support from UNAIDS and the US Center for Disease Control did not offer promising results.

Among the 1,089 respondents, 90 percent rejected the idea of equal rights for LGBT people and 75 percent said Haiti should ban gays and lesbians from entering the country.

Back with Antoinette and we discuss Parliamentary elections, due to be held later this year — might this have any impact I ask? She says it is hard to have any dialogue with the government on LGBT issues. It’s a big NO she tells me, also noting that they are afraid to ask for public support for fear of what they might face.

She wants specialised support offices for victims to deal with crimes against the LGBT community. People are dying over this, she reminds me, but the international community, international pressure, gives her hope.

In the meantime, without protection and societal change, for most LGBT Haitians, daily acceptance remains much more than just a struggle.