UN Women - United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

05/01/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 05/01/2025 12:40

Media Factsheet Haiti: Impact of ongoing violence on women and girls

Press release

Media Factsheet Haiti: Impact of ongoing violence on women and girls

1 May 2025

New York-1 May 2025: Haiti's escalating gang violence has pushed the country to the brink of collapse, with armed groups controlling key neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince and carrying out mass atrocities. Ongoing gang violence in Haiti has displaced more than a million people, nearly a tenth of the population, and the security breakdown is landing hardest on women and girls, eroding their safety, health, and basic human rights.

Image
The site for displaced people hosted at Marie-Jeanne school in Port-au-Prince, where 7,000 people live in overcrowded and desperate conditions, seeking safety amidst the ongoing armed violence in Haiti, 18 March 2025. Photo: UNICEF/UNI769396/Patrice Noel

Here are some ways the ongoing violence is impacting women:

Overall facts and figures

Gender-based violence

  • Sexual and gender-based violence is on the rise - especially in displacement sites where shelter, sanitation, and protection are severely lacking.
  • Women are most targeted group of sexual violence[1] (including rape, gang rape, and rape with kidnapping and killing) and are the most vulnerable at home when gangs raid homes in a neighbourhood during an attack.
  • Girls tend to be more vulnerable while in the street.

Food insecurity

  • 5.7 million people in Haiti experience high levels of acute food insecurity.
  • About 1 million households headed by women face acute food insecurity.
  • Women's food security is worsening, compared to August 2024, in a number of areas. In displacement camps, 65 percent of female-headed households now face acute food insecurity; in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, 60 percent; in the Rest-of-West region, 50 percent; and in Artibonite, 40 percent.

UN Women calls on the international community, governments, humanitarian organizations, donors, development and private sector partners to:

  • Provide emergency food aid and cash assistance to female-headed households.
  • Establish income-generating activities to strengthen women's self-reliance and livelihoods.
  • Support women's organizations so they can effectively advocate for their rights and needs and provide services to survivors of violence.

[1] UN Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Arrangements (MARA), April 2025. SRSG on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

UN Women - United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women published this content on May 01, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on May 01, 2025 at 18:40 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at support@pubt.io