Behind the troublesome situation in Haiti are a number of historical, cultural and environmental factors. Our author takes a look at the details, outlining the need for a politics of hope for a long-suffering people.
Haiti is administratively divided into 10 departments, which are subdivided into districts, each of which has communes. The communes are in turn divided into community sections, and these are made up of neighborhoods. According to Haitian and international humanitarian and human rights organizations working in Haiti, this administrative structure may vary and there can be additional or different subdivisions in some places, for example in densely populated or large communes, where residents
The 98-page report, “Living a Nightmare: Haiti Needs an Urgent Rights-Based Response to Escalating Crisis,” documents abuses committed by criminal groups and state inaction in four metropolitan Port-au-Prince communes – Cabaret, Cité Soleil, Croix-des-Bouquets, and Port-au-Prince itself – between January and April 2023. In Haiti, the state is nearly absent, impunity reigns, and nearly half the population is acutely food insecure. Human Rights Watch also assessed the humanitarian, political, and judicial crises, plus abuses of previous international interventions and the enduring legacy of slavery, exploitation, and abuse by colonial powers.