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4 women reveal the hidden side of the haïtian-dominican border

Dadoune Guerrier, Chantal Joseph, Roselène Jeudy and Ivonia Joseph, four women taken with the nets of the traffickers denounced the brutal form, perverse and disrespectful in which they are treated at the time of the clandestine crossings of the haitian-dominican border transformed into a counter with sexual slaves. These four women of which oldest is 36 years old, are originating in the commune of Lascahobas located in the Central Plateau, a frontier department. They testified passed on November 20, in Port-au-Prince, during a press conference carried out by the GARR, on the occasion of the international Day to the elimination of violence against women. « 16 years old, allowed in 6th fundamental year, I could not go any more to school because my mother did not have the means with her ten children. I thus decided to go to Dominican Republic”, tells Dadoune Guerrier, 24 years. “A trafficker helped me to cross the close ground border, it sold me to a man. This last locked up me during 2 years in a house where it beat me all day long. It broke me the leg. I daily cried so that it lets me leave, which it always refused. Nobody of my family knew where I was. One day, one of his friends helped me to flee from the house. Now, I have a child of which I am at the same time the mother and the father», she entrusted to the press. Another Haitian, Chantal Joseph, 27 years, tears with the eyes, described the collective rape which she underwent at the time of an irregular voyage at the border. The trafficker which led it was arranged with other men to make this rape and had locked up her shortly after in a house where he made of her his sexual slave. «I had two children, their father was deceased. I wondered what I was going to do to send them to the school. Suddenly, a man proposed to me to go to Dominican Republic, as a greater comfort. Thus, I decided to go over there. I sold for 3000 gourdes the two goats of my children, and I gave the money to the trafficker. During the voyage, in Belladeres, 15 other men are assembled and got on board. After having crossed the border, close to Elias Piña, the frontier trafficker required of us to go down to mislead the vigilance of the Dominican soldiers. He then declared me that if I did not agree to have sexual intercourse with him, I would not arrive at destination. Vis-a-vis this situation, I have to yield. His infamy finished , another arrived and violated me. Several other men came and made the same. When I started to feel exhausted, saying that I could not about it any more, one of them hit me and tore my clothing» testified Chantal Joseph who found itself pregnant and gave rise to a child of which she is unaware of the identity of the father. She is now stigmatized in its community.Roselène Jeudy, 36 years, mother of six (6) children, told the sufferings lived with her companion who had advised her to sell all her belongings to migrate to Dominican Republic. Arrived over there, her husband returned the difficult life to him, beating her so much that she had to be hospitalized. Fleeing the blows and threats of her companion she took the party to settle in another locality. One day, she was surprised by agents of Dominican immigration which repatriated her towards Haiti, without her 4 children. To recover them, she had well quickly to make again the crossing of the border. « But, on my return in Dominican Republic, it was serious, I found my house ransacked, a bloodstained bed and one of my young girls 10 years old violated». she explained at the edge of the tears. In its turn, Yvonia Joseph, 28 years, told with the press its martyrdom: « I had three (3) children, I have four (4) for the moment. I crossed the border with a trafficker. He seized the 3000 gourds which were in my bag. He threw himself on me, tore my clothing, violated me and left me in the undergrowth. Little time afterwards, 3 other Dominican arrived, struck me and violated me», she entrusted. This November 20, with the GARR, Dadoune, Chantal, Roselène and Yvonia linked their voice to ask the Haitian authorities «to assume their responsibilities, to take measures aiming at improving the living conditions of the women of the border, to organize the police force and justice so that they prevail against the frontier traffickers in search of women to take them along to Dominican Republic and to violate them during the crossing». These 4 women belong to a group of 200 old and new repatriates including 150 women who are being offered an accompaniment from the GARR in Lascahobas.