Haiti By Force

Transcription

(using video on Journeyman website)

 

 

[00:04] Screen Text: Haiti By Force

 

(music)

 

[00:14] REPORTER: I'm in Haiti. All of the women I'm about to talk to have one thing in common. They all say they were raped by United Nations peace keepers.

 

[00:26] (OFFSCREEN VOICE): How does that sound?

 

[00:29] CECILIA DELSYS (translation on screen): I was going to visit a friend who was holding two goats for me. Then I see this man standing around.

 

[00:37] GIRL IN WHITE T SHIRT(translation): I always see the same uniform on other MINUSTAH. Sky blue... not dark sky blue, but light, light, light, light.  

 

[00:46] MIMOSE JEAN CLAUDE (translation): Even if they're not wearing the clothes, if you see the hat, you know it's them. 

 

[00:50] ANISE (translation): He spoke to me but I didn't know what he's saying to me. So I stopped and stood. He made a sign to tell me to come to him.

 

[00:59] MIMOSE JEAN CLAUDE (translation): You can try to fight with the person but he may kill you. These people have guns.

 

[01:05] Girl in BLUE PATTERNED TOP (translation): He took me by force. It was not something I wanted. I didn't want that....  He took me by force. He took it by force, he took it by force.

 

[01:30] REPORTER: We arrived in Haiti last October, just after Hurricane Matthew devastated the Southern Coast. More than 1000 people have been killed in the storm, towns were still flooded and relief had been slow. But we were here to cover a different story. The United Nations Mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, was established in 2004 to help strengthen the rule of law. But its legacy has been marred by a pattern of rape, UN personnel preying on the very people who they are supposed to protect. We wanted to understand what that meant for women here, and why after decades of scandals, so little has changed.

 

[02:20] OVILA(translation): When you see that the fever is not breaking, you make the tea. You make the tea with orange leaves, pidgeon pea leaves, soursop leaves. You boil them together and bathe the child

 

[02:35] REPORTER: When we met Ovila, her son Wood Nelson had been sick for more than a week. She was about to be evicted from her home.

 

[02:46] OVILA (translation): Everything I owned of value, I sold so that I can feed the child. Sometimes I take him and leave the house at 5 in the morning. I go walking downtown and I just keep walking and walking. Sometimes I have this idea of just giving him away to a random person on the streets.

 

[03:16] REPORTER: Ovila said she was 17 when a UN soldier raped her near her home in Port-au-Prince.

 

[03:24] INTERVIEWER: Tell me about the day when the attack happened.

 

[03:30] OVILA (translation): He ripped off my clothes. He started to beat me. He put me in a car and dropped me outisde by a wall.

 

[03:47] REPORTER: Ovila told us she never reported her rape to the UN. It took her weeks to even tell her mother she was pregnant. She had to drop out of school when Wood Nelson was born.

 

[03:59] OVILA (translation): Sometimes I think about what happened and I get lost in my thoughts.... I want justice by finding the person who did this. I want to hear what he has to say to me.... I'm walking around in the streets feeling like a destitute because of the UN.... He asks me, “Where's my Dad?”... I tell him that his father went to sea to fish and never came back.  

 

[04:39] REPORTER: The United Nations cites 85 allegations of sex abuse in Haiti between 2008-2015. But like Ovila, we found that most women never report their rapes, and aren't counted in that offiical tally. Independent estimates suggest more than 500 women may have been raped or exploited by UN personnel since 2005.

 

[05:14] MARIO JOSEPH: This okay?

 

[05:16] REPORTER: A day after meeting Ovila, we drove south with Mario Joseph. He's the lawyer best known for suing MINUSTAH over the cholera epidemic. But now he's taking on the United Nations in a new case.

 

[05:28] MARIO JOSEPH: It's a big issue for us, because its United Nations who promote the human rights. Some soldiers come in Haiti, and they exploit and abuse girls and women and they leave the country, they leave them with a baby. What, what will be the right of these children?

 

[05:52] REPORTER: Exactly what are you doing here with this, with this suit that you're about to file?

 

[05:57] MARIO JOSEPH: I, I'm trying to make United Nations responsible.

 

[06:06] REPORTER: Most of the 9 women Mario represents in this case have just lost their houses in the storm.

 

[06:11] MARIO JOSEPH: They need some assistance. They got baby, without a father.

 

[06:17] REPORTER: Last summer, Mario sent legal notices to the UN, asking them to co-operate with the paternity claims the women are trying to file against the soldiers who fathered their children.

 

[06:28] MARIO JOSEPH: They never respond to us. They never said nothing. The problem is, people who are only earning 20 cents... we never have any mechanism to do, to do nothing. They violate the right of the people-

 

[06:44] REPORTER: But Mario, is, is, there a mechanism that's not being used?

 

[06:47] MARIO JOSEPH: No, no- no mechanism. They don't-

 

[06:49] REPORTER: - nothing?

 

[06:50] MARIO JOSEPH: Nothing! Nothing!

 

[06:54] REPORTER: At the heart of the abuse is a unique legal arrangement. In exchange for taking the job, peace keepers are given immunity to any criminal liability in the countries they serve. That means here in Haiti, they are essentially above the law.... It took us days to track down  Rosmina and Joseph after the hurricane. Self service was cut, and she fled to a temporary shelter in a nearby school.

 

[07:27] ROSE MERLINE (translation): That is my bed.

 

[07:29] JOSEPH: There's another one.

 

[07:31] ROSMINA (translation): Everything is compeltely destroyed. After a while we saw that the roof of the house flew off. We were fighting to escape, trying to run away. While we are running, running, the house is collapsing, collapsing. I felt that I was going to die with the child. There's no life, the wind is so strong, there was so much damage. Just my suitcase, nothing else was saved.

 

[07:56] REPORTER: A UN soldier named Julio got Rosmina pregnant when she was only 17; statutory rape in Haiti.

 

[08:04] ROSMINA (translation): There was a beach down there. I was headed to the beach and whenever he got off from work, he always was at the beach.

 

[08:12] REPORTER: Then, Julio's rotation ended, and he returned to Uruguay.

 

[08:18] ROSMINA (translation): When I was pregnant he did send me 150 dollars. And when the child was a year and ten months, almost two years old, he sent 100 dollars. After that he never sent anything else.

 

[08:30] REPORTER: Rosmina's case is unusual in that the UN did eventually confirm paternity for her son. But it's meant very little for them. She said they gave her 300 dollars for travel costs to Port-au-Prince for DNA testing, and then never heard from them again.

 

[08:48] ROSMINA (translation): If the child is sick, I must borrow money from a friend. If I need to go to the hospital and need 100 dollars, I'll have to ask someone o borrow 100 dollars and then I have to pay the person back. That's how I'm living.

 

[09:11] REPORTER: When pressed, a UN official told us that there were less than a dozen children worldwide receiving child support. Unlike Rosmina who knows the name and nationality of the father, the majority of the women we spoke to described annonymous, violent attacks.... As we were reporting this story, close to 5,000 peacekeepers were stationed in Haiti still, from almost 50 different countries. Over the course of it's misison here, MINUSTAH has had dozens of bases, scattered throughout remote regions of the country.... We've heard about a cluster of rape cases around a former UN base of  Anse-à-Pitres, around a 7 hour drive from Port-au-Prince.

 

[10:21] ANNELEISE DIEAULAINE (translation): My name is Anneleise Dieaulaine. I'm 23 years old.

 

[10:27] ANISE (translation): My name is Anise. I'm 32.

 

[10:32] MIMOSE JEAN CLAUDE (translation): My name is Mimose Jean Claude.

 

[10:37] CECILIA DELSYS (translation): My name is Cecilia Delsys.

 

[10:41] DAPHNE (translation): My name is Daphne. I'm 22.

 

[10:46] REPORTER: All of the women gave us permission to film their faces, and their children. They said they thought it was important to come forward with their stories. They wanted the UN to know they existed.

 

[11:02] REPORTER: (offscreen) Are we rolling? I'm going to ask you to do something that’s very difficult. Can you take us through what happened to you? Where did the attack happen? What was going through your mind? Tell us in detail, as if you’re telling us the story from the beginning to the end.

 

[11.25] DAPHNE (translation): I was going to buy charcoal. He met me in the streets. He stopped the car and told me he's give me a ride.

 

[11:30] UNNAMED SURVIVOR (translation): One of the soldiers said, “Get in!”. I didn't want to, but then he yelled again, “Get in!”.

 

[11:34] ANNELEISE (translation): I was trying to pull away.

 

[11:36] ANISE (translation): I thought they were soldiers so they wouldn’t act unruly.

 

[11:39] CECILIA (translation): He was in a white car. We were both talking to each other. Then he pulled out his gun and said, “I want to have sex with you”.

 

[11:49] ANNELEISE (translation): He held the gun under my neck and because it was only me, it was only me and my heart stopped. He was holding me there.

 

[11:57] DAPHNE (translation): If we were in public, I would've screamed out. He parked the car in a secluded area.

 

[12:02] UNNAMED SURVIVOR (translation): I thought he'd kill me and dump my body in the streets.

 

[12:07] REPORTER: (offscreen) How did you know the people who attacked you were from the UN?

 

[12:12] UNNAMED SURVIVOR (translation): He had the blue helmet on his head. With that cheap ugly uniform they wear. You're just a bird in front of them. They are the army. You're just a human and you have no power. When the person orders you, “do this!”, you see him as a soldier and you're just a bird.

 

[12:42] ANISE (translation): He raped me from the back. I was pinned against the car, my hands were like that and he bent me over. I thought he was going to kill me. I didn’t think he was going to let me go while still breathing. That's why I decided to make as little movement as possible.

 

[13:08] UNNAMED SURVIVOR (translation): I let him use me as he pleased. When he was done, I went home.

 

[13:13] ANNELEISE (translation): If it was one person, I would've fought even if it cost my life.

 

[13:28] REPORTER: (offscreen) How did this man leave you?

 

[13:32] DAPHNE (translation): My whole body ached. It hurt for a long time.

 

[13:37] ANISE (translation): It was painful.

 

[13:46] CECILIA (translation): I didn't know I was pregnant. After I missed my period a month later, that's when I found out.

 

[13:55] ANISE (translation): I cried every day. I was crying throughout the pregnancy, screaming out. I was sad all the time.

 

[14:07] UNNAMED SURVIVOR (translation): They gave me different medicines to get rid of the child. It didn't work so I decided to accept it and take care of the child. I thought to myself, if I had died during that encounter, I would've died and that'd be it. However, I'm just pregnant and not dead, so I'll take care of myself and my child.

 

[14:24] CECILIA (translation): Until now, no one knows that this child is the child of MINUSTAH.

 

[14:30] REPORTER: (offscreen) Was there any way that you could have reported the attack?

 

[14:35] MIMOSE (translation): I thought that if I spoke, I'd be harassed.

 

[14:41] UNNAMED SURVIVOR (translation): When the person who is the leader, supposed to protect you is the one perpetrating the violence. You, who are the civilian, how are you supposed to be vindicated? Who will say, “Oh, you did this, you're getting beat and you're going to prison”.  No.

 

[14:57] CECILIA (translation): I was alone and I was in the woods. You know how Haiti is, there is barely justice. So I couldn't seek justice, who could I call? So I kept it all in my heart. I kept it all in my heart. 

 

[15:18] REPORTER: The UN claims the number of assaults has gone down, but after almost two decades of impunity, these women told us they just saw no point in reporting the crimes. This is the General now in charge of UN soldiers in Haiti, he believs the abuse has stopped.

 

[15:41] GENERAL AJAX: In our records, you don’t have case like this for, in the last three years. Allegations and accusations about the sexual abuse, if something has happened, I don’t know, they talk to me. And if it happens, uh, you’re not hearing this.

 

[16:02] REPORTER: So anything that’s happening in Haiti, that’s to do with sexual exploitation and abuse, you would know about it?

 

[16:10] GENERAL AJAX : Yes.

 

[16:11] REPORTER: Your intelligence would tell you?

 

[16:12] GENERAL AJAX: Yes

 

[16:13] REPORTER: So right now, as far as you're concerned, zero cases?

 

[16:18] GENERAL AJAX: Zero cases.

 

[16:21] REPORTER: Do you think the cases are happening, and you’re not hearing about them?

 

[16:26] GENERAL AJAX: No, I think they are not happening-

 

[16:27] REPORTER: Its not happening? So General Ajax, the system works? The system that the UN has set up, in terms of if a crime is committed, during a mission, by a peacekeeper. The system is in place, and it works?

 

[16:41] GENERAL AJAX: Works, works, works.

 

[16:47] REPORTER: Though the stricter rules General Ajax has imposed on his forces seem to be helping, we found evidence that crimes have still been committed in the last three years. This is Janelia Jean. The day after speaking with the General we visited her in Jacmel to confirm the age of her daughter. Janelia says she was born just over a year ago after she was raped by a UN soldier in Port-au-Prince. She didn’t want us to film her daughter, but agreed to talk to us.

 

[17:19] JANELIA JEAN (translation): It’s painful. Sometimes it makes me sad. They sent them to stop the violence and instead they’re the ones causing the violence.

 

[17:35] UN CHAIRPERSON : Good morning, uh, the Secretary General will, uh, make some remarks and then we will have time for questions. Sir, you have the floor.

 

[17:45] UN SECRETARY GENERAL: I cannot put into words, how anguished and angered and ashamed I am, by recurring reports over the years of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN forces.

 

[18:04] REPORTER: United Nations headquarters, New York. Everyone here seems to know the system is broken. The stories aren’t just in Haiti, they are in almost each of the 16 countries where the UN has a peacekeeping operation. Last year, after yet another scandal, the Secretary General appointed a special representative, tasked solely with fixing the UN’s response to sex abuse. Her name is Jane Holl Lute. We’ve been granted an interview to discuss her work.

 

[18:35] JANE HOLL LUTE : Why is this unacceptable behaviour going on? Well it turns out, for the women of the world, this is an ever present danger. There's nowhere women are safe. There's no family, no church,  no school, no organisation, no workplace-

 

[18:50] REPORTER: (cuts across) – But Ms Lute, at, at the UN, under UN responsibility. Isn’t that the place, if there was one place in the world?

 

[18:57] JANE HOLL LUTE: There is no one place.

 

[19:00] REPORTER: Tell me when you can point to it, and you can say, “Okay, efforts the UN is putting into stopping sexual exploitation and abuse- this is a great example of it working”.

 

[19:10] JANE HOLL LUTE: Uh, uh, you know, um, I guess, I’m reacting to your phrase of “a great example”, um-

 

[19:17] REPORTER: (cuts across) An example. Lets not set the bar too high. An example.

 

[19:21] JANE HOLL LUTE: In the Central African Republic, there has been swift action taken, for example, by the Congoloese.

 

[19:27] REPORTER: Why are there so few cases that actually get to court? Why is that?

 

[19:30] JANE HOLL LUTE: I don’t know the answer to that. Um, but what we, what I do want to have the answer for, is explaining why, we now see fewer of these cases. What is it we are doing that is making us better?

 

[19:44] REPORTER: So you're seeing the fewer cases as the system improving. Could possibly be that people have just given up reporting?

 

[19:51] JANE HOLL LUTE: No, no, I don't wanna see false, false flaws. I'm not interested in false flaws.

 

[19:57] REPORTER: Where is the justice?

 

[20:02] JANE HOLL LUTE: Hmm... I think you're, the better question is, 'How can the UN work with member states to ensure proper accountability when serious allegations of SEA are made?'

 

[20:17] REPORTER: So-

 

[20:19] JANE HOLL LUTE: (cuts across) – so you're question comes across to me as, who, just who is it that has to wave their hand for this problem to be solved?

 

[20:26] REPORTER: (cuts across)- No, I'm saying about that...

 

[20:26] JANE HOLL LUTE: - (cuts across), And what I'm saying is that that doesn't exist.

 

[20:27] REPORTER: Actually, just, I keep going back to the women, the children that I met.

 

[20:33] JANE HOLL LUTE: How can the UN better create conditions so that when this abuse happens, that three things happen: That victims get the assistance they need, how can we do better there? How can we do better to ensure that investigations and administrative processings necessary to bring accountability, are bought to bear. And then, how can we as an organisation learn from this to further improve?

 

[21:08] REPORTER: Of the more than a dozen women we spoke to in Haiti, only one had reported her rape. Georgina said she was 15 when she was raped by a Sri Lankan peacekeeper at a base near her house. MINUSTAH said they found out more than 2 years later.

 

[21:26] GEORGINA (translation): He slammed me on the floor. My uniform was dirty all over. There was blood on the floor, all over my head. 

 

[21:38] REPORTER: Georgina, are you okay?

 

[21:39] GEORGINA: Mmhm

 

[21:40] REPORTER: Are you okay to talk to us?

 

[21:42] GEORGINA: Mmhm

 

[21:43] REPORTER: Georgina, they, the United ntaions heard about  what happened to you, and then they did what? Did they come talk to you, did they interview you? Can you explain what happened once they knew? About your attack?

 

[21:59] GEORGINA (translation): They ask me the question, they asked it again, they asked it over and over and over. It was like they would ask me a question, then ask me another question, then ask the first question again. Do you understand? The method that they used was like some type of test to see if I was lying. But they are not the ones who were traumatized. It was me.

 

[22:26] REPORTER: The UN's office of internal investigation told us it was far too late to collect physical evidence, and she didnt know his name. Georgina's case was ruled unsubstantiated and closed.

 

[22:39] GEORGINA (translation): They made me feel like it was my fault. I couldn't go to school for years. Even when I made the effort to go to school, it's like I have this thing in my brain that is always disturbing me.

 

[22:59] REPORTER: Georgina said the investigators gave her money for a taxi home, and she never heard from them again. UN Headquarters confirmed that nothing more was done about her case.

 

[23:14] Screen Text: Atul Khare. Under-Secretary-General for field support.

 

[23:14] REPORTER: (To Atul Khare) There's a word I've heard you say several times, and I want to understand it from the context of women on the ground, the victims. Unsubstantiated.

 

[23:22] ATUL KHARE: Yes.

 

[23:22] REPORTER: That doesn't mean they weren't attacked, weren't raped. What does sit mean?

 

[23:25] ATUL KHARE: What it means is, there is not sufficient evidence to prosecute in a court of law.

 

[23:31] REPORTER: So what happens to them?

 

[23:39] ATUL KHARE: An unsubstantiated case-

 

[23:42] REPORTER: (cuts across)- nothing happens for them.

 

(music)

 

[24:03] (sound of children playing]

 

[24:12] ATUL KHARE: What I would say to the victims is, yes we are improving our processes. Please come, please report to us. Uh, we will take up the case. We will get it investigated. What I can do is, prevent.

 

[24:26] REPORTER: Why is it taken so many decades to get to prevent? And I've heard people being as adamant as you are, decade after decade, and we are still looking at it as an issue.

 

[24:42] ATUL KHARE: Should this not have happened in 2004?  Yes, it should have happened. Did it happen in 2004? No, it did not happen. But can I change 2004? No, I can't. Uh, what I can change is now, and in the future. Which we are changing.

 

(music)

 

[25:54] Screen text: Footage courtesy of Al Jazeera.