Haitian women and children are increasingly being targeted for rapes, torture, kidnappings, and killings by the 200 armed groups that now control 60 percent of the capital.
Their plight has been compounded by a lack of safe shelters or refuge. More than 96,000 people have been displaced by the gang violence, but neither the Haitian government nor the international community have mandated formal displacement sites.
Dozens of women and girls have been raped at some of the 33 makeshift displacement camps, according to the Haiti-based Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), a legal group trying to assist some of the women who have been attacked.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) told The New Humanitarian it recorded some 32 cases of rape or other gender-based violence in just two days in September.
“Speaking about 10 cases means there are 1,000 unreported; speaking about 100 means that there are 10,000,” said Lara Chlela, a UNICEF spokeswoman.
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