IJDH Report on Displacement Camp Conditions

[bcholmes]

This report presents findings from a five- month follow-up of 90 Haitian families displaced by the January 12, 2010 earthquake. The initial survey was conducted in six displacement camps in February 2010. The resulting report, Neglect in the Encampments: Haiti’s Second-Wave Humanitarian Disaster, was presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C. on March 23, 2010.

A second survey conducted in July compared how living conditions in the camps measured against human rights standards set forth under the Haitian Constitution and international law on the treatment of displaced persons. Fifty- two of the original families were located and interviewed, yielding the following evidence of systematic human rights violations:

• Food. 75% of families had someone go an entire day without eating in the past week and over 50% indicated that their children did not eat for an entire day
• Clean Water. 44% of families primarily drank untreated water
• Sanitary Environment. 27% of families defecated in a container, a plastic bag, or on open ground in the camps
• Housing. 78% of families lived without enclosed shelter
• Health. There were 245 independently listed health problems among 45 families
• Protection From and During Displacement. 94% of families felt they could not return home while 48% had been threatened with forced eviction since the earthquake
• Self-Sufficiency. 37% of families did not have a single family member with a full- time job, a part-time job, a cash-for-work arrangement, or self-employment

Our results indicate that aid has slowed and even stopped in each of the six camps surveyed, making life far worse for most of the families.

— "'We've Been Forgotten': Conditions in Haiti's Displacement Camps Eight Months after the Earthquake", Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti