A year after Haiti's capital was destroyed by an earthquake, violence and rape haunt the lives of vulnerable women and children living in makeshift settlements. But a handful of Haitians have mobilized to fight for protection and justice for their sisters.
In the midst of riots and cholera outbreak, Pastor Joel Sainton continues to minister to Haitians with HIV/AIDS.
A woman relies on sex work to make ends meet, struggling to support herself and her children following Haiti's earthquake.
I thought, he said of the wife
who lasted six months, before
the news of this treachery of the
blood, before he lay on his back
I will clap my hands,
bundle my fingers into fists,
lift them and shake them
and laugh, this belly laugh
of pure simple joy
for the precious feet
This is a home,
this is a shelter,
these walls, shaken,
the lines of jagged
cracks, the split
at the ceiling
that lets in light
and rain
The words cluster behind your teeth;
close in, the smooth patina, deep brown,
of your face is alight with the effort:
you, boy, carrying the weight
of an old man
From here the mountains around
Port-au-Prince are green; too
far to see the denuded hillside,
too far to see the brown wounds
When you leave from here, head down
Canape Vert to your cooling hotel room,
to the breadfruit casserole and barbecue
chicken, to the closed in peace of your
life
The faces of mothers of mothers,
their cheekbones gleaming against
taut skins; their eyes glazed
with the scarring of so much loss.
Every crumbled building is a tomb.
We step over grey crushed bricks
and the entanglement of steel.
As many as 120,000 people live with HIV in Haiti. Many have been displaced since the earthquake that devastated the country, in conditions that experts warn may lead to a health disaster.
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