Communities in southwestern Haiti were devastated when Hurricane Matthew struck the Tiburon Peninsula on October 4, 2016. Accompanied by rapid winds, heavy rainfall, and subsequent flooding, the Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale killed at least 1,000 people, destroyed countless homes, and displaced thousands. Approximately 2.1 million people have been affected, 1.4 million need humanitarian aid, 750,000 need urgent help, and 806,000 are at an extreme level of food insecurity. Haiti, which is roughly the size of South Carolina, was ill-equipped to withstand another natural disaster. For the past six years this Caribbean country has been trying to recuperate from the 2010 earthquake that left more than 200,000 dead (according to Haitian government figures) and wreacked havoc upon a preexisting weak infrastructure. Now history seems to be repeating itself.

Communication networks are down, crops were destroyed, and roads have been blockaded by debris–making it all the more strenuous for citizens to receive the assistance they desperately need. Simultaneously burdened by two catastrophes, once again Haitians are bracing themselves for another cholera outbreak. Yet with limited financial resources and crumbling medical facilities, some hospitals don’t even have enough gasoline to put into ambulances or any antibiotics left to ward off the waterborne disease.

“Needs are growing as more affected areas are reached,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, whose organization recently pledged $120 million for humanitarian aid in Haiti. “Tensions are already mounting as people await help. A massive response is required.”

Oftentimes referred to as the “republic of NGOs” (non-governmental organizations), Haiti rarely receives the aid it is promised. Although some would consider the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere to be susceptible to certain ailments (like inclement weather and bad governance), the reality of the situation is that Haitians haven’t gotten the necessary support to thrive as a sovereign nation after decades of economic exploitation, American military intervention, and poorly implemented aid projects.

Colonial History

Much of Haiti’s tumultuous past stems from its colonial predecessors: Spain and France. From 1492 to 1625, the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) was administered by Spain. Originally the native Taíno inhabited the island, but the Arawak group was essentially wiped out after Christopher Columbus and his fellow voyagers brought infectious diseases. During this era, however, a variety of European powers were competing for geopolitical power and resources in the Caribbean. The 1697 Treaty of Ryswick allowed France to inherit Haiti from Spain in order to mitigate conflict between the two colonial powers. The western third of the island became “Saint-Domingue” under French rule, while Spain maintained its sphere of influence in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Throughout the 1700s, Haiti became the wealthiest colony in the “New World”–making up more than a quarter of France’s economy in the process. During the peak of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, however, such wealth was only achieved through brutal means. Thousands of enslaved Africans were brought over to the French territory to perform backbreaking labor on Haiti’s many sugarcane plantations. This exploitation continued until 1801 when a successful slave revolt defeated the French army, making Haiti the first black republic in 1804. However, in order to achieve international recognition and persuade French warships to leave Haitian harbors, Haiti was coerced in 1825 into paying their oppressors an “independence debt” worth 150 million gold francs. Valued at approximately $21 billion by today’s standards, this large sum of money was meant to compensate French colonists for their lost profits. Although the remaining $36 million of debt was forgiven by the World Bank in 2010, some attribute this initial debt to having predisposed Haiti to immense economic shortcomings. 

The United States has also contributed to Haiti’s myriad of problems. Concerned about European rivals in 1914, former President Woodrow Wilson deployed American troops in Haiti to ensure that no other country would try to exert influence in the region. Another reason why the United States interjected was the political instability of Haiti. In fact, between 1888 and 1915 no Haitian president managed to complete their seven-year term due to numerous military coups, assassinations, and deaths of natural causes. American intervention lasted from 1914 to 1934 until President Franklin Roosevelt enacted his “Good Neighbor Policy.” Following three decades of American occupation, despotic dictatorships under François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier plummeted the country into further political and economic turmoil. Democracy was only temporarily restored with the appointment of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was temporarily ousted in a 1991 military coup.

American Intervention & Clinton Administration Controversies

In contrast to other American politicians, Bill and Hillary Clinton have made Haiti a focal point of their foreign policy, but that focus hasn’t been without controversy. In the early 1990s Bill Clinton won the love and admiration of many Haitians after helping the democratically-elected President Aristide return to office after he was ousted in a 1991 coup. However, this was only accomplished by enforcing another U.S.-led intervention that lasted approximately two years. Ever since then, Washington has played an immense role in dictating Haitian politics and economics. While serving as Secretary of State, for example, Hillary Clinton’s administration was accused of threatening to withhold foreign aid to Haiti if the 2010 presidential elections didn’t yield the candidate Washington desired. Additionally, the highly anticipated Caracol Industrial Park–a 600-acre textile factory meant to provide much-needed jobs to Haitians–was a Clinton Foundation project. The Clinton Foundation promised it would create 60,000 jobs in five years, but the enterprise only employs approximately 5,000 laborers as of mid-2015.

Other adverse effects of American involvement can be found in Haiti’s agriculture and economy. For example, during Bill Clinton’s presidency, Haiti became more dependent on international imports. Pressured by the United States, the Haitian government was persuaded to lower tariffs on imported food (including rice) from 50 percent to about three percent–making their main export less valuable in the process. Instead of growing their own rice, Haitians started to rely more heavily on exported rice, therefore becoming less capable of feeding themselves with domestically-grown products. 

The Clintons were also accused of mishandling 14.3 billion dollars of donation money that was intended to go toward relief efforts following the 2010 earthquake. Under Ban Ki-moon’s jurisdiction, Bill Clinton became the UN envoy to Haiti tasked with spearheading relief efforts. Based on a report by neoconservative group PJ Media, though, this money allegedly went to “friends of Bill” instead.

Effectiveness of Non-Profits

Among the estimated 10,000 non-profits operating out of Haiti, perhaps the most notorious is the American Red Cross. Normally held in high regards, the humanitarian organization pledged to help Haiti rebuild itself after the fatal 2010 earthquake. The charity managed to fundraise approximately $500 million through soliciting donations. The money was supposed to fund the construction of new homes, roads, schools, etc., but after six years it appears as though the Red Cross has not fulfilled its promises. In fact, it’s unclear where all the money even went.

This past summer ProPublica and NPR conducted an extensive investigation that revealed a series of fabrications and haphazard estimations among the samaritan group. The joint effort examined an array of confidential memos and emails from administrative higher-ups that show how “the charity has broken promises, squandered donations, and made dubious claims of success.”

One of the most garish falsifications involved housing. Apparently, the Red Cross claimed to have built homes for over 130,000 people in the neighborhood of Campeche in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, but in reality only six were constructed. Another controversial discovery is the amount of overhead costs that the Red Cross gives to its employees, which more often than not are non-Haitians. For example, a project manager working in Haiti receives an allowance of $140,000 meant to cover housing, food, paid trips home, four vacations a years, and relocation expenses. In contrast, a Haitian senior engineer earns $42,000 a year. Because of such disparities, Haitian non-profits are known for perpetuating inequalities among a small group of wealthy foreign elites–most of whom cannot speak Haitian-Creole, nor French.

Conclusion

Despite the UN’s current attempts to rejuvenate Haiti, even it isn’t immune to scrutiny–especially when it comes to the ongoing health crisis surrounding cholera. The fact of the matter is that Haiti was cholera-free for over a century before UN peacekeepers reintroduced the infectious disease back to the island. Cholera is a fast-spreading infectious disease known for causing severe diarrhea and dehydration. As certain reports have proven, waste generated from UN facilities crept into a river, which in the end contaminated other nearby bodies of water. Since fresh water was scarce in Haiti to begin with, now it is even more difficult to find sanitary water to drink or bathe in.

“The need for a new UN response that both controls and eliminates cholera and compensates the victims who have suffered so much is now more dire than ever,” said Beatrice Lindstrom, who serves as a human rights lawyer with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

Haiti will continue to be plagued with problems if the impoverished country is unable to properly recover from disease outbreaks like this, as well as devastating natural disasters. Decades of economic exploitation, flawed aide efforts, and further interference and exploitation from other countries inhibit this country’s ability to thrive as a sovereign nation.

Resources

Al Jazeera: Ban Ki-moon in Haiti Inspects Matthew’s Damage

Al Jazeera: Haiti Death Toll from Hurricane Matthew Passes 1,000

Alternet: How America and the Rest of the World Ruined Haiti

BBC: Haiti Quake Death Toll Rises to 230,000

BBC: The Long History of Troubled Ties Between Haiti and the US

TIME: The World Must Not Abandon Haiti to the Devastation Left by Hurricane Matthew 

The Daily Beast: How Hillary Helped Ruin Haiti

Foreign Policy in Focus: Are Foreign NGOs Rebuilding Haiti or Just Cashing In?

The Guardian: Hollande Promises to Pay ‘Moral Debt’ to Former Colony Haiti

Miami Herald: In Post-Hurricane Haiti, a Picture of the Human Toll Begins to Emerge

NPR: In Search of the Red Cross’ $500 Million in Haiti Relief

Newsweek: Reasons Behind Haiti’s Poverty

New York Times: Cholera Deaths in Haiti Could Far Exceed Official Count

PJ Media: Former Haitian Senate President Calls Clintons ‘Common Thieves Who Should Be in Jail’

Politico: The King and Queen of Haiti

ProPublica: How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes

Reuters: World Bank Cancels Remaining Haiti Debt

London Review of Books: Who Removed Aristide?: Paul Farmer Reports From Haiti

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to correct the year in which the Treaty of Ryswick was signed. 

Jacob Atkins

Jacob Atkins is a freelance blogger and contributor for Law Street Media. After studying print journalism and international relations at American University, Jacob now resides in Madrid where he is teaching English, pursuing multimedia reporting projects and covering global news. Contact Jacob at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

http://jacobson.pressfolios.com/

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Hillary Clinton might have some explaining to do before she can claim the top spot in the Democratic primary. Any pro-Hillary voters who prioritize moral plans for American foreign policy should probably look into the candidate’s past in Haiti. The Pulitzer Center hosted journalist Jonathan M. Katz on Monday night for a discussion about the Clintons’ influence and rather infamous legacy in Haiti and I was fortunate enough to be able to attend. It’s surprising how little the failures and destruction of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s presence in Haiti have been brought up so far. Hopefully by 2016 this topic will be making headlines.

First, some background on the topic: on January 12, 2010, the deadliest natural disaster ever recorded in the hemisphere, a magnitude-7.0 earthquake, devastated Haiti’s southern peninsula and killed 100,000 to 316,000 people. Former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led the Haitian reconstruction effort and vowed to help the country “build back better,” so that if another disaster struck, Haiti would be able to respond more quickly and with more efficiency. Hillary described their efforts as a “road test” that would reveal “new approaches to development that could be applied more broadly around the world.”

The Clinton Foundation alone has directed $36 million to Haiti since 2010. Another $55 million has been spent through the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, and an additional $500 million has been made in commitments through the Clinton Global Initiative’s Haiti Action Network. But what does Haiti have to show for all of these investments? Not much, according to Katz. “Haiti and its people are not in a better position now from when the earthquake struck,” he said. The hundreds of millions of dollars and the years of reconstruction efforts have yielded negligible results. For a project so expansive, Hillary has kept relatively quiet about Haiti thus far in her campaign. Her spokesman declined to comment on how Haiti has shaped her foreign policy, saying Hillary would address that “when the time comes to do so.”

Hillary’s big plan for how she would “rebuild” Haiti in the wake of desolation was characteristically American: through business. With big corporate plans on the horizon, Bill and Hillary became exceedingly familiar faces in Haiti leading up to the 2011 presidential elections. It’s not surprising that the candidate who vowed to make Haiti “open for business” was ultimately the victor. Former Haitian pop star Michel Martelly eventually won the race, after Hillary salvaged his candidacy when he was eliminated as the number 3 candidate by convincing the parties to accept him back into the race. Katz said that this vote was fraudulent. Martelly, a businessman and strong proponent of foreign investment in Haiti, was “attractive” to the State Department, Katz noted. He very much had a “Clinton view of Haiti and a Clinton view of the world.”

That’s how Caracol Industrial Park, a 600-acre garment factory geared toward making clothes for export to the U.S., was born in 2012. Bill lobbied the U.S. Congress to eliminate tariffs on textiles sewn in Haiti, and the couple pledged that through Caracol Park, Haitian-based producers would have comparative advantages that would balance the country’s low productivity, provide the U.S. with cheap textiles, and put money in Haitians’ pockets. The State Department promised that the park would create 60,000 jobs within five years of its opening, and Bill declared that 100,000 jobs would be created “in short order.” But Caracol currently employs just 5,479 people full time. “The entire concept of building the Haitian economy through these low-wage jobs is kind of faulty,” Katz stated on Monday. Furthermore, working conditions in the park are decent, but far from what should be considered acceptable.

Not only did Caracol miss the mark on job creation, but it also took jobs away from indigenous farmers. Caracol was built on fertile farmland, which Haiti doesn’t have much of to begin with. According to Katz, Haitian farmers feel that they have been taken advantage of, their land taken away from them, and that they have not been compensated fairly. Hundreds of families have been forced off the land to make room for Caracol. The Clintons led the aggressive push to make garment factories to better Haiti’s economy, but what it really created was wealth for foreign companies. This trend was echoed when the Clintons helped launch a Marriott hotel in the capital, which has really only benefited wealthy foreigners and the Haitian elite.

Mark D’Sa, Senior Advisor for Industrial Development in Haiti at the U.S. Department of State, said that many of the Clintons’ promises remain unfulfilled and many more projects are “half-baked.” Haiti remains the most economically depressed country on the continent. If Hillary wins in 2016, U.S. policy geared toward Haiti will undoubtedly expand, meaning even more money will be funneled to the Caribbean nation to fund the Clintons’ projects, for better or for worse. According to Katz, the truth is that we don’t actually know how much money has been thrown into the Caribbean country to “rebuild” it, and that with economic growth stalling and the country’s politics heading for a shutdown, internal strife seems imminent.

The introduction of accountability for the foreign aid industry is the most important change that can be made, according to Katz. Humanitarian aid does nothing positive or productive if there are not institutions in place, managed by individuals who actually live in these countries, to oversee that aid is serving rather than hurting the people it is supposed to “help.” Hillary Clinton’s efforts in Haiti have fueled political corruption, destroyed arable farmland, and have forced hundreds of families to leave their homes and their jobs to make room for a factory that has not given even a fraction of the amount to Haiti as it has taken. If the introduction of accountability is the way to go, then we first need to start talking. So Hillary, what do you have to say about Haiti?

Emily Dalgo

Emily Dalgo is a member of the American University Class of 2017 and a Law Street Media Fellow during the Summer of 2015. Contact Emily at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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According to UNICEF, 140 million children around the globe have lost one or both parents. These children are classified as “orphans.” While there are many reasons that children can become orphans, it is a global problem that affects a wide range of nations. Read on for a spotlight on some of the particular nations and regions that have the most orphans, and what is being done to help those children in need.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to many orphans. Although sub-Saharan Africa is a large region, its nations share some of the same problems. The onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa began in the 1970s, and continued at high levels in the 1980s. In addition to HIV/AIDS, other diseases such as malaria and TB, and war and conflict in some states have left some 52 million of sub-Saharan Africa’s children without one or both parents.

In 2015 in sub-Saharan Africa, it was estimated by UNICEF that about 11 percent of children under 18 were orphans. Many of those children became orphans as a result of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the region. According to Nancy E. Lindborg, assistant administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance at USAID, 15 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have lost their parents specifically to the disease in 2014. However, as frequent as it is that children are orphaned because their parents die of HIV/AIDS, there are also other factors that leave them in non-parental care. For instance, high poverty rates can lead to the abandonment of children, particularly in rural areas or if the parents are migrant workers and unable to take their children to different locations with ease. Other diseases, such as malaria, can also play a role. While sub-Saharan Africa is a huge region and not all the issues faced by one country would be faced by another, these are common threads that many sub-Saharan nations experience.

Spotlight: Ethiopia 

Ethiopia, located in the horn of Africa, has a population of more than 90 million people. According to UNICEF, over four million of that population is made up of orphaned children. Just under one million are children who have been orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS.

Addressing those health concerns is paramount to stopping the rising orphan levels in Ethiopia. Health care should be provided to ill parents to prevent mother to child transmission and to ensure that they can care for their children as long as possible. Children should benefit from access to quality health care, especially if they are HIV positive themselves.

A focus on community and capacity building ensures that healthcare facilities will be functioning institutions now and in the future. Healthcare professionals need to be trained within the country, and healthcare centers need to be available in villages and local communities. Recently, there has been a focus on a cycle of health care that can sustain itself. As Worldwide Orphans, the first group to bring HIV/AIDS drugs to orphans in Ethiopia, explained about its process:

Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals needed to be trained and mentored by experts in the treatment and ongoing care of children with HIV/AIDS. And so, WWO recruited an extraordinary team of pediatric AIDS specialists from Columbia University to work side by side with in-country professionals, examine and test each child, decide upon treatment, and consult on follow-up care. Seminars were held, with all materials translated into the country’s language. As a result, more than 400 healthcare professionals have been trained and taken their learning back to villages, towns, and cities across their countries.

This kind of community building can also be applied to education and development activities.

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe’s experience at the end of the twentieth century was characterized by war, turmoil, and poverty. Even Eastern European nations that had rather advanced and progressive social services practices–such as the former Yugoslavia–were devastated by the infighting after the breakup of the Soviet Union and forced to revert back to a reliance on orphanages. As those institutions were often underfunded, overcrowded, and lacking appropriate resources, they didn’t help children to grow and thrive. While many Eastern European countries are moving toward shutting down these institutions, there is still much work to be done to ensure that children in these nations receive adequate support.

Spotlight: Bulgaria 

Bulgaria’s orphan population is high, at an estimated 94,000 in 2009. While the vast majority of these children are “social orphans,” meaning their parents are alive but unable to care for them or have abandoned them, they still require the same support and resources as children who have lost one or both parents.

For a long time, Bulgaria’s many orphans were kept in orphanages, which by their nature often are only able to provide a few staff members to care for large groups of children. For young children, this can be particularly damaging, as they don’t get the attention and nurture that they need. Studies show that for every three months in institutionalized care, infants and toddlers lose about one month of developmental growth. As a result of these concerns about orphanages, Bulgaria announced in 2010 that it would be moving toward de-institutionalization. The country hopes to close all orphanages by 2025. The Bulgarian government is looking to implement a model similar to what we see in the United States, where the focus is on placing children in foster families, kinship care, or small group homes. Dr. Jane Aronson, founder of Worldwide Orphans, described this process in 2011:

They have already done the first level of developmental screening of the most complex children and now they will go deeper into the psycho-social and family issues of these children. Their goals are reuniting the children with their families, closing large institutions, group home assignments and foster care.

This strategic plan will then be used for the orphanages for healthy children.

Many orphans in Bulgaria, and other parts of Eastern Europe, are Roma. Traditionally the Roma, or Romani people, have been oppressed and discriminated against throughout Europe. Due to that cycle, many Roma children become “social orphans” and are left in institutions. Recent estimates indicate that approximately 60-80 percent of children in orphanages are from the Roma minority who represent only four percent of the Bulgarian population. In addition, a 2011 study by the Helsinki Committee found that up to 50 percent of Bulgaria’s orphans are of Roma descent. Empowering this community and providing educational resources to these vulnerable children will help break the cycle of poverty and abandonment.

Latin America and the Caribbean

The country facing a large-scale orphan crisis in the Caribbean and Latin America is Haiti, particularly in light of the devastating earthquake that happened in January 2010. Nevertheless, there are a significant number of orphans in the region. While UNICEF reports 340,000 orphans in Haiti alone, there are many others in the region who have their own unique obstacles to overcome. UNICEF in 2013 put the number in the region at just over 8.4 million.

Spotlight: Haiti

Most estimates prior to the 2010 earthquake, including those from Worldwide Orphans, put the number of orphans in Haiti at over 400,000. While those numbers are now around 340,000, Haiti sees many of the issues similar to those in Ethiopia and Bulgaria, including intergenerational poverty and HIV/AIDS infection. UNICEF estimates the number of children orphaned in Haiti due specifically to HIV/AIDS at 100,000.

Due to the 2010 earthquake and the subsequent destruction of significant portions of the infrastructure, addressing the orphan issue effectively and efficiently in Haiti has been very challenging. Furthermore, even before the disaster, educational opportunities and jobs were hard to come by. Providing orphaned young people with skills and opportunity will help them to be resilient, by extension improve their communities, and hopefully break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. As Worldwide Orphans explains about its “Haitians Helping Haitians” program,

The youth training model has been replicated in a hospital in Port-au-Prince, where young adults are trained to work with babies and infants who have been abandoned at the hospital. This model provides them with much needed income, job skills and a chance to build self-esteem and positively contribute to their own community. Whether playing with infants and toddlers in the WWO Toy Library, or serving up arts and crafts, nature, performing arts, life skills, education, teambuilding activities at camp and in after-school programming, WWO’s youth corps of trainees are not only providing valuable enrichment to children suffering from chronic disease and the emotional scars of abandonment, they are building their own skills in child development which will serve them in future employment and in their own journeys into parenthood.

By providing children with resources to help themselves and their communities, Haiti will be better positioned to rebuild a nation that is still feeling the effects of such a devastating natural disaster.

Conclusion

Currently there are 140 million orphans worldwide. Most orphans are “social orphans” and likely have identifiable families–if there is the social infrastructure to find them. Unfortunately, in developing nations, there are so many orphans and very limited financial resources to reintegrate and reunite families.  Nations like Ethiopia, Bulgaria, and Haiti each demonstrate how issues of poverty, disease and conflict impact children in different cultures. However, it is important to remember that these problems are not necessarily unique. Virtually all across the world, children lose parents to disease (HIV, Malaria, etc) conflict and war, poverty, natural disasters and experience trauma that impacts their development. There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to preventing orphaning. Instead, a combination of approaches, including early intervention, community capacity building, de-institutionalization, establishment of group homes and foster care, and other critical psychosocial support programming, like the work that Worldwide Orphans undertakes, needs to be implemented to ensure that every child grows up safe, independent, and healthy.

Resources

Primary

UNICEF: Ethiopia

UNICEF: Bulgaria

UNICEF: Haiti

UNICEF: State of the World’s Children 2015

Additional

Food, Nutrition and Agriculture: Orphans and the Impact of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa 

Borgen Magazine: House Subcommittee Discusses African Orphans

Worldwide Orphans: Ethiopia

Worldwide Orphans: Capacity/Community Building

Medwire: Bulgaria Special Report: Children Continue to be Neglected Due to ‘False Reforms’

NIH: Neurodevelopmental Effects of Early Deprivation in Post-Institutionalized Children

Worldwide Orphans: Bulgaria 

Huffington Post: Bulgaria: Changing Orphans’ Lives

EU Business: Abandoned Roma Children Fill Europe’s Orphanages

Children and Youth in History: UNICEF Data on Orphans by Region

Worldwide Orphans: Haiti

SOS Children’s Villages: Children’s Statistics

Worldwide Orphans

Worldwide Orphans is dedicated to transforming the lives of orphaned children to help them become healthy, independent, productive members of their communities and the world, by addressing their physical and mental health, education, and ability to achieve. WWO was founded in 1997 by Dr. Jane Aronson, who has dedicated her life to working with children. Worldwide Orphans is a partner of Law Street Creative. The opinions expressed in this author’s articles do not necessarily reflect the views of Law Street.

http://www.wwo.org

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