A mother and her child, displaced by gang violence, sleep on the bare floor of a school in Haiti.
This article is published in association with United Nations.
Between January and September, over 7,400 cases of gender-based violence (GBV) were reported in Haiti – an average of about 27 per day, according to UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.
“Sexual violence made up just over half of the cases, (about 3,700) and with nearly two thirds of these involving gang rape (about 2,500), he added.
Alarming levels of GBV continue in Haiti, yet survivors and those at-risk face severely limited access to essential support due to insecurity, logistical challenges, and funding shortfalls, warned the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Funding shortfalls
Due to budget cuts, the UN and its partners were only able to reach seven percent of the 833,000 people they had aimed to assist, reported M. Dujarric.
The response remains critically underfunded, with an overall gap of $13.5 million – 70 per cent of the over $19 million needed for this year.
Despite these constraints, between January and February, the UN and its partners scaled up lifesaving services, reaching those most impacted, through over 32,000 awareness sessions. Around 560 frontline workers also received training.
WHO warning over lack of support for survivors
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Many girls and women who survive gender-based violence worldwide are being let down when they seek medical help – often because systems are not in place to provide what they need – the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.
In a new report from the UN agency’s European office, it said that nearly three in 10 women and girls over 15 will experience physical and/or sexual abuse across the region.
Health services “are often the first – and only – point of contact for survivors”, and yet key assistance is not being provided, especially time-sensitive post-rape services and access to safe abortion, WHO maintains.
According to data from 53 European countries, only seven offer safe abortion services, the agency found.
Policies in place are key
WHO’s Melanie Hyde said that when you look at the different needs of survivors of sexual assault, only 40 per cent of Member States in the European region have those provisions enshrined at a policy level: “What we find is if it’s not in policy, then it’s not going to be at the frontline.”
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WHO is calling this a public health crisis which has a significant negative impact on individuals in terms of their mental and physical health, but also to families and society.
Youth Activists Summit celebrates hope over hate and ‘humanity over hostility’
Finally, some welcome good news from a youth summit in Geneva on Thursday, where activists have been sharing their positive stories of change, that have helped tens of thousands of people all over the world.
Among the inspiring individuals at this year’s Youth Activists Summit was Marina El Khawand, who set up a global platform for surplus medicines from scratch.
She took the decision in the aftermath of the deadly port explosion in Beirut in 2020, when she struggled to find prescription drugs for an elderly survivor who needed them to breathe properly.
Good Samaritan
Marina’s lightbulb moment came after she searched multiple pharmacies without success, before asking for help on her social media account.
Within hours, a stranger donated 12 boxes and it wasn’t long before her online platform – Medonations – was born, she told UN News:
“The moments where I took the first box of the 12 boxes I’m holding in my hand, she’s crying because she saw her basic right to health, which is her medication. That is the only thing that can keep her alive and keep her breathing like it was the happiest and the saddest moment.”
Youngsters leading change
Marina shared her story at the summit along with four other young activists from Brazil, Ivory Coast, India, Japan, all with their own solutions to drive global change.
Representing the UN, communications chief Melissa Fleming urged the young audience and all those online to transform social media noise and negativity into action, creativity and hope.
“Movements don’t start with institutions, they start with individuals,” she said, before encouraging everyone to log their actions on the UN Act Now Campaign app, as 28 million people around the world have done already.
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