The Hidden Epidemic: Violence against Women in Haiti
Date
2011-05-04
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Repository Usage Stats
views
downloads
Abstract
Since the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, violence against women has frequently appeared in the media as one of the gravest consequences due to insecure living situations in settlement camps. This, however, is not newly arisen issue and has been occurring in the country at relatively high rates prior to the disaster. Violence against women presents an unconventional portrait in Haiti, meaning the characteristics of the situation run counter to the usual circumstance of violence in which the poorest and least educated form the majority of victims. This stems from Haiti’s climate of insecurity, which is composed of economic, social and political instabilities and imposes extremely challenging living conditions on its population. The climate of insecurity produces two social mechanisms—the crisis of masculinity and the feminization of insecurity—that make women vulnerable to violence, especially sexual assault. Gender-based violence in turn leads to traumatic consequences that perpetuate the climate of insecurity by engendering an environment of fear on the part of the victim. Thus, the violence against women and the climate of insecurity in Haiti are in a cyclical relationship in which one drives the other.
Type
Department
Description
Provenance
Citation
Permalink
Citation
Kang, Ju Yon (2011). The Hidden Epidemic: Violence against Women in Haiti. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3738.
Except where otherwise noted, student scholarship that was shared on DukeSpace after 2009 is made available to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial / No derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) license. All rights in student work shared on DukeSpace before 2009 remain with the author and/or their designee, whose permission may be required for reuse.