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The following information is based on the Amnesty International Report 2021/22. This report documented the human rights situation in 149 countries in 2021, as well as providing global and regional analysis. It presents Amnesty International’s concerns and calls for action to governments and others. 

HAITI 2021

The political and economic situation continued to deteriorate, facilitating massive human rights violations, abductions and generalized violence. Human rights defenders and journalists were at heightened risk, impunity remained endemic and tens of thousands of Haitians sought international protection.

Background

The killing in July of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse was a shocking indicator of the massive human rights violations and violence that Haiti has been facing for years.1

Following an earthquake in August, the UN estimated that some 800,000 people needed assistance. As of August, the US State Department advised against all travel to Haiti due to “kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and COVID-19”.

Human rights defenders and journalists

Human rights defenders and journalists were increasingly at risk of attack and human rights violations.

There was little progress in the investigation into the killing of journalist Diego Charles, a reporter for Radio Vision 2000 and co-founder of the website Larepiblik Magazine, and Antoinette Duclaire, a political and human rights activist, vocal government critic and co-founder of Larepiblik Magazine. They were murdered just a week before President Moïse. The authorities failed to protect their families, who were subjected to death threats and intimidation.2

Impunity

Civil society organizations continued to raise concerns about chronic impunity and judicial dysfunction in Haiti.

In April, the Observatoire Haïtien des Crimes contre l’humanité and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic issued a report alleging Haitian government complicity in three massacres targeting impoverished neighbourhoods between 2018 and 2020. The report pointed to evidence that the attacks, carried out by gangs, were supported by state actors and alleged these acts could amount to crimes against humanity.

Refugees’ and migrants’ rights

During the year, tens of thousands of Haitians made their way overland, often taking dangerous routes, including through the Darien Gap jungle, to reach Mexico and the USA. However, both countries implemented policies and practices that limited access to international protection, and continued mass detentions and unlawful forced returns to Haiti, Mexico and Guatemala, placing the lives and physical integrity of thousands of Haitians at risk.3 In September, images emerged of US border authorities on horseback abusing and taunting Haitians, which provoked widespread condemnation.4 However, between 19 September and 10 November alone the US government sent nearly 9,000 Haitian migrants and asylum seekers to Haiti, largely without providing access to the US asylum system or protection screenings, exacerbating the crisis.5

In September, UN agencies also jointly called on states across the Americas to adopt a comprehensive regional approach for Haitians on the move and to provide them with protection measures including asylum “or other legal stay arrangements for more effective access to regular migration pathways”.

In October, a resolution adopted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights addressed the regional need to increase the protection of Haitians on the move. Despite this, during the year, states across the region largely failed to shield Haitians from a range of human rights violations in host countries, including detention and unlawful pushbacks, extortion, anti-Black racism, gender-based violence by armed groups, and destitution, leaving many Haitians with restricted access to protection measures including asylum6 and nowhere safe to go.7

Refugee and Migrant Rights –  A Look Ahead in 2022 

In September of 2022 around the one-year anniversary of the border agent abuses in Del Rio against Haitian migrants, Amnesty International will do a follow-up report to the briefing and fact sheet.

Haiti Newsroom



October 28, 2021 • Report

Countries across the Americas are failing to provide protection for Haitians on the move

States across the Americas are failing to provide international protection and safety for Haitians on the move, exposing them to a range of human rights violations, including detentions and illegal pushbacks by authorities; extortion; anti-Black racial discrimination; abuses by armed groups, including gender-based violence; and lack of access to adequate housing, healthcare, and employment, said Amnesty International and Haitian Bridge Alliance in a new briefing published today.

September 30, 2021 • Press Release

Congress’ Passage of Continuing Resolution Is a Critical First Step in Supporting Afghan Refugees

Today, Congress passed a continuing resolution that includes funding to support Afghans arriving to the United States and ensures that Afghans arriving on humanitarian parole have access to refugee resettlement benefits.

September 24, 2021 • Press Release

Biden Administration Must Hold CBP Officers Accountable and Restore Access to Asylum for All Haitian Migrants

In response to the mass deportation of Haitian migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and horrific reports of Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) inhumane treatment against Black asylum-seekers, Paul O’Brien, Executive Director at Amnesty International USA said: “The horrific conduct by CBP in Del Rio, Texas, including officers charging into crowds of Haitian asylum-seekers on horseback, violently dispersing them, taunting them, and forcing them away from safety, is reprehensible and underscores a deeper problem of systemic and racist treatment against Haitian and other Black migrants in the U.S. and at the southern border.

September 21, 2021 • Press Release

#WelcomeWithDignity Expresses Steadfast Solidarity with Haitians

Today, the #WelcomeWithDignity campaign expressed its disgust with Customs and Border Protection’s treatment of Haitian people seeking asylum at Del Rio, Texas. The campaign joined dozens of other national organizations and expressed steadfast solidarity with Haitian …

February 27, 2020 • Report

Countries cracked down on asylum and the right to protest in the Americas in 2019

As millions took to the streets to protest rampant violence, inequality, corruption and impunity, or were forced to flee their countries in search of safety, states across the Americas clamped …

June 13, 2016 • Report

Where are We Going to Live?: Migration and Statelessness in Haiti and the Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic has unlawfully expelled hundreds of Dominicans to Haiti who have been caught in the middle of a wave of returns and deportations of more than 100,000 people in recent months, Amnesty International said in a new report a year after the Dominican Republic ended a moratorium on deportations on June 18, 2015.

February 18, 2016 • Report

Amnesty International State of the World 2015-2016

International protection of human rights is in danger of unravelling as short-term national self-interest and draconian security crackdowns have led to a wholesale assault on basic freedoms and rights, warned Amnesty International as it launched its annual assessment of human rights around the world. “Your rights are in jeopardy: they are being treated with utter contempt by many governments around the world,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

February 25, 2015 • Report

State of the World 2014/2015

This has been a devastating year for those seeking to stand up for human rights and for those caught up in the suffering of war zones. Governments pay lip service to the importance of protecting civilians. And yet the world's politicians have miserably failed to protect those in greatest need. Amnesty International believes that this can and must finally change.

January 6, 2015 • Report

15 Minutes to Leave: Denial of the Right to Adequate Housing in Post-Quake Haiti

Five years on from a devastating earthquake in Haiti, tens of thousands of people remain homeless as government policy failures, forced evictions and short-term solutions have failed many who lost everything in the disaster.

May 20, 2013 • Report

Annual Report: Haiti 2013

REPUBLIC OF HAITI Head of state Michel Joseph Martelly Head of government Laurent Lamothe More than 320,000 people made homeless by the January 2010 earthquake remained displaced during 2012. Thousands …

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