January, 10 2013, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7413 5566,After hours: +44 7778 472 126,Email:,press@amnesty.org
Haiti: Three Years on from Earthquake Housing Situation Catastrophic
LONDON
Three years on from the Haiti earthquake the housing situation in the country is nothing short of catastrophic with hundreds of thousands of people still living in fragile shelters, Amnesty International said as it urged the authorities and the international community to make housing a priority.
The 12 January 2010 earthquake left more than 200,000 people dead and some 2.3 million homeless.
It is estimated that more than 350,000 people currently live in 496 camps across the country.
According to testimonies gathered by Amnesty International in Haiti, living conditions in the makeshift camps are worsening - with severe lack of access to water, sanitation and waste disposal - all of which have contributed to the spread of infectious diseases such as cholera.
Women and girls are vulnerable to sexual assault and rape.
"As if being exposed to insecurity, diseases and hurricanes were not enough, many people living in makeshifts camps are also living under the constant fear of being forcibly evicted," said Javier Zuniga, Special Advisor at Amnesty International.
Since the earthquake, tens of thousands of people have been forced from the camps. The International Organization for Migrations reported that nearly 80,000 more people living primarily in camps set up on private land are currently at risk of eviction - 21 per cent of the total camp population.
Marie (not her real name) and her child were violently and forcibly evicted along with tens of other families from Place Jeremie on 21 December 2011.
"The camp committee was putting pressure on us to leave the camp. They said they needed the square for a [football] championship. But we didn't have anywhere to go so we stayed there. They distributed leaflets every now and then with threats. At night they would throw stones and bottles on our tents ... Then one day at 3 o'clock in the morning, they came and started knocking on the doors. Then they destroyed my shelter with razor blades and knives... They pushed me out and started tearing down everything. I did not have time to take any of my things with me; I left only with the clothes I was wearing."
"Haiti suffered from a severe housing deficit even before the earthquake but for hundreds of thousands, the situation today is catastrophic," said Javier Zuniga.
Last April, the Haitian authorities made public a draft of a National Policy on Housing. The plan sets out a number of priorities for the construction of houses but does not set the conditions for those living in poverty to access adequate and affordable housing. The plan does also not commit to preventing forced evictions.
With the support of international donors, national authorities also launched, in August 2011, a plan to relocate people from 50 displacement camps to 16 neighbourhoods ("Project 16/6"). Through the project, families receive a rent subsidy of US$500 over a period of 12 months to encourage them to leave the camps for better housing and US$25 for transport. Families are responsible for finding their own home to rent and reaching an agreement with the landlord.
Even though the project helped some families, subsidies are too low, individuals are not supported to find accommodation and families are not offered support in the long-term.
Many people told Amnesty International delegates in Haiti of their worries about not knowing where they would live after the end of the subsidies, as they would not be able to afford the rent. As it is, they are currently struggling to feed themselves and their children, let alone pay for other basic essentials such as clothing, medicine and education.
"Current government housing initiatives seem to focus more on preventing people from living in public squares than providing them with safe homes. What we want to see is the implementation of policies that will actually make the right to adequate housing a reality in the country," said Zuniga.
The withdrawal of humanitarian actors in early 2011 and funding shortfalls have contributed to worsening living conditions in the makeshift camps. Only a fraction of funds pledged by donors has been allocated to fund housing projects.
"Back in 2010, the world couldn't move fast enough to help Haiti but three years on, we see that the hopes for its recovery have not been realized, as the rights of Haitians do not seem to have been made a priority. The country needs action from national authorities and real support from the international community," said Zuniga.
HAITI EARTHQAKE IN NUMBERS
The earthquake
200,000 people dead
2.3 million homeless
105,000 houses destroyed; 208,164 houses badly damaged
The Internally displaced
357,785 people (90,415 families) living in 496 camps (as of end October 2012)
52% are women
Forced evictions
60,978 individuals have been evicted from 152 camps since the earthquake
78,175 individuals are currently under threat of eviction - 21 % of the total number of IDPs currently living in camps
Living conditions in camps
72,038 internally-displaced people in 264 of the 541 camps did not have on-site access to water and toilets (in June 2012)
50% of camps remaining did not have on site access to water and toilets, affecting more than one internally displaced person out of six, for a total of 66,546 persons. (June 2012)
Before the earthquake
67% of the urban population lived in slums which were the areas most affected by the earthquake
Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world - so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity. We have more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and we coordinate this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues.
LATEST NEWS
Alabama House Passes Bill That Could Be 'Used to Arrest Librarians'
"I feel like this is a violation of the First Amendment, and it's easily going to be abused," one Democratic lawmaker said.
Apr 26, 2024
The Alabama House of Representatives voted 72-28 on Thursday in favor of a bill that would apply the state's criminal obscenity laws to public libraries, public school libraries, and the people who work there.
Critics, including the Alabama Library Association, have warned that the bill could see librarians jailed and argued that it violates the First Amendment.
"This is a pig," Rep. Chris England (D-70), said during the debate, as AL.com reported. "It is a bad bill, and when you attempt to take what is normally non-criminal conduct and make it criminal, you bend yourself into ways that potentially not only violate the Constitution but potentially subject somebody to an illegal arrest with no due process."
"Why are they coming into libraries or thinking that they can come in and run the place better than us as professionals?"
House Bill 385 would allow anyone to write a letter to a school district superintendent or head librarian claiming a book is obscene. The Montgomery Advertiser explained further:
The library would be required to remove the materials within seven days of receiving the required written notice. Failure to remove said materials would result in a Class C misdemeanor upon the first offense, a Class B misdemeanor upon the second offense, and a Class A misdemeanor after the third and beyond. They may challenge the claim during the seven-day period.
In Alabama, a Class C misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of three months in jail and fee of $500. The maximum sentence for a Class B misdemeanor is six months of jail time and a $3,000 fee, while a Class A misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a $6,000 fee.
The bill also adds to the definition of the "sexual conduct" minors must be protected from to include "any sexual or gender-oriented material that knowingly exposes minors to persons who are dressed in sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative clothing or costumes, or are stripping, or engaged in lewd or lascivious dancing, presentations, or activities in K-12 public schools, public libraries, and other public places where minors are expected and are known to be present without parental consent."
During the debate, England warned, "This process will be manipulated and used to arrest librarians that you don't like, and not because they did anything criminal. It's because you disagree with them," as The Associated Press reported.
Rep. Mary Moore (D-59) warned that the description of sexual conduct was loose enough that it could apply to students dressed up for prom, according to AL.com.
"Some of them would be under the jail because of this," Moore said.
Rep. Neil Rafferty (D-54) also expressed concerns that the language could apply to people in Halloween costumes or wearing summer clothing.
"I feel like this is a violation of the First Amendment, and it's easily going to be abused," he said, according to AP.
Rep. Barbara Drummond (D-103) said the bill was "putting lipstick on a pig," and added that the government "can't legislate morality," and that it would prevent children from "having an open mind," AL.com reported.
The bill comes amid increased politicization of libraries and attempts to ban books, especially in Republican-led states.
In Alabama, the legislature is also considering making $6.6 million in public library funding dependent on whether a library relocates materials deemed inappropriate for children, AL.com reported further. Nationwide, PEN America found that the total number of book bans in schools and libraries during just the first half of the 2023-2024 school year was greater than all the titles banned in 2022-2023, and that number had already jumped by 33% from the school year before.
The bill applying obscenity laws to libraries now heads to the Senate, but Alabama Library Association president Craig Scott told AP the state should expect to lose "lawsuit after lawsuit" if it becomes law.
"Why are they coming into libraries or thinking that they can come in and run the place better than us as professionals?" Scott asked.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Sabreen, Baby Girl Rescued From Mother's Womb After Israeli Airstrike, Dies
The baby was born last week via an emergency Caesarean section, but doctors were ultimately unable to save her.
Apr 26, 2024
A grieving family and a team of medical providers in Rafah, Gaza were desperate this week for a miracle, hoping that newborn Sabreen al-Rouh Jouda would survive after being delivered prematurely moments after her mother died of injuries sustained in an Israeli airstrike.
On Friday, it became clear that the family's hopes would not be realized as doctors announced Sabreen's death.
Dr. Muhammad Salama, head of the emergency neonatal department at Emirati Hospital, where Sabreen was born last week via a Caesarean section that was caught on film and widely reported as outlets searched for any bit of hopeful news out of Gaza, said the baby's lungs were not able to fully absorb oxygen because she was born at just 30 weeks' gestation.
"Every day we have a sad story; every day we have a horrible story," Salama toldNBC News, gesturing to other babies whom doctors and nurses are struggling to care for amid Israel's destruction of the territory's healthcare system. "This baby right here, his father has died. This baby's mother has died. Another two babies in the ICU, one of them came and we cannot know, sadly, if his mother or father is alive."
Sabreen is now one of 16 children killed in two airstrikes last weekend at a housing complex in Rafah, where Israeli officials have said they plan to move forward with a planned ground invasion.
Sabreen's parents and their three-year-old daughter, Malak, were also killed.
Her mother, Sabreen al-Sakani, was rushed to the hospital on Saturday night with extensive injuries that she succumbed to just before doctors performed the emergency Caesarean section.
Sabreen weighed just 3.1 pounds at birth and was in severe respiratory distress, but doctors were able to temporarily stabilize her condition.
Her grandmother was filmed speaking to her as she lay in an incubator earlier this week.
"I swear I will lock you inside my heart," she said. "You will live in blessing."
At least two-thirds of the 34,356 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since last October have been women and children, according to the local health ministry. Israel and the U.S., which has contributed billions of dollars in weapons to the IDF, have repeatedly claimed the military is precisely targeting Hamas fighters.
As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, the IDF has relied on an AI targeting system to identify Hamas targets, but considers bombing suspected militants in their homes "a first option," and has officially considered the killing of up to 100 civilians for every Hamas target an acceptable level of precision.
Israel has also claimed it has designated so-called safe zones, but Palestinians have been killed after moving to areas where the IDF said it wouldn't carry out bombings.
"There are no safe places at all, they are liars, liars," Sabreen's uncle, Rami Jouda, told NBC News. "There is no safe place in Gaza. We are all living under the menace of death."
Keep ReadingShow Less
ACLU Sues to Uncover 'What the NSA Is Hiding' About Its Use of Artificial Intelligence
"AI tools have the potential to expand the NSA's surveillance dragnet more than ever before," the civil liberties group warned.
Apr 26, 2024
The ACLU on Thursday sued the National Security Agency in an effort to uncover how the federal body is integrating rapidly advancing artificial intelligence technology into its mass spying operations—information that the agency has kept under wraps despite the dire implications for civil liberties.
Filed in a federal court in New York, the lawsuit comes over a month after the ACLU submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking details on the kinds of AI tools the NSA is using and whether it is taking any steps to prevent large-scale privacy abuses of the kind the agency is notorious for.
The ACLU said in its new complaint that the NSA and other federal agencies have yet to release "any responsive records, notwithstanding the FOIA's requirement that agencies respond to requests within twenty working days."
"Timely disclosure of the requested records [is] vitally necessary to an informed debate about the NSA's rapid deployment of novel AI systems in its surveillance activities and the safeguards for privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties that should apply," the complaint states, asking the court for an injunction requiring the NSA to immediately process the ACLU's FOIA request.
In a blog post on Thursday, the ACLU's Shaiba Rather and Patrick Toomey noted that AI "has transformed many of the NSA's daily operations" in recent years, with the agency utilizing AI tools to "help gather information on foreign governments, augment human language processing, comb through networks for cybersecurity threats, and even monitor its own analysts as they do their jobs."
"Unfortunately, that's about all we know," the pair wrote. "As the NSA integrates AI into some of its most profound decisions, it's left us in the dark about how it uses AI and what safeguards, if any, are in place to protect everyday Americans and others around the globe whose privacy hangs in the balance."
"That's why we're suing to find out what the NSA is hiding," they added.
BREAKING: We just filed a FOIA lawsuit to find out how the NSA — one of America's biggest spy agencies — is using artificial intelligence.
These are dangerous, powerful tools and the public deserves to know how the government is using them.
— ACLU (@ACLU) April 25, 2024
The ACLU filed its lawsuit less than a week after Congress approved a massive expansion of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), warrantless spying authority that the NSA has heavily abused to sweep up the communications of American journalists, activists, and lawmakers.
With their newly broadened authority, the NSA and other intelligence agencies will have the power to enlist a wide range of businesses and individuals to participate in their warrantless spying operations—a potential catastrophe for privacy rights.
Rather and Toomey warned Thursday that the growing, secretive use of artificial intelligence tools has "the potential to expand the NSA's surveillance dragnet more than ever before, expose private facts about our lives through vast data-mining activities, and automate decisions that once relied on human expertise and judgment."
"The government's lack of transparency is especially concerning given the dangers that AI systems pose for people's civil rights and civil liberties," Rather and Toomey wrote. "As we've already seen in areas like law enforcement and employment, using algorithmic systems to gather and analyze intelligence can compound privacy intrusions and perpetuate discrimination."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular