Migrant Haitian Women in the Line of Fire

By: Charlotte Wiener

The cry "Enough already!" is echoing in several parts of the Caribbean and the Americas to denounce bad practices and abuses against Haitian migrants, especially women. Along with the feminization of migration, there has been a parallel rise in cases of women's human-rights violations, which previously affected men more simply because they were the majority. This increase involves distinct violations against Black women that become visible through intersectionality. This theory, conceptualized by African American lawyer Kimberle Williams Crenshaw in 1989, highlights the different facets of oppression and privilege, since everything depends on how different social categories intersect. For example, a Black migrant woman will face specific discrimination based on the intersection of being a migrant, Black, and a woman, which a white migrant woman would not face, nor would a Black male migrant. This distinct intersectional discrimination affecting Haitian migrant women stands out in recent regional accounts.

The Caribbean

The Martinican association ASSOKA (Asosyasion Solidarite Karaib - Caribbean Solidarity Association), which defends immigrants' rights, published a statement in July 2020 on the violations suffered by migrants (mostly Haitians) in Martinique at the hands of Martinican authorities. It is entitled "La mecanique de deshumanization" (The Mechanism of Dehumanization). In addition to denouncing violations against migrants in Martinique in general, the text focuses on the discrimination suffered by Haitian migrant women through the intersection of racism and sexism. These specific forms of discrimination include: "failure to take into account the dangerous migration route, the systematic search for proof of the legitimacy of the paternity of children labeled as 'non-French,' the questioning of domestic violence suffered, labor disqualifications, blackmail through false work contracts, denied access to medical care, interference in private life, and lack of child protection" (p. 62). In addition, in November 2020, the association Culture Egalite, which fights for women's rights, together with ASSOKA, called a press conference to denounce police harassment of migrant women (mostly Haitians) by the national police in Martinique.

More recently, on the sister island of Guadeloupe, the Haitian migrant support collective denounced discriminatory and racist practices by the authorities against Haitian migrants in general. This outrage came after the French government chartered a private plane to deport about 30 Haitian immigrants because there were no commercial flights due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It should be emphasized that these immigrants, who had no criminal records, were deported to Haiti, a country that is currently in a situation of serious political instability.

Latin America

In Latin America, the discrimination, humiliation, and injustice suffered by Haitian immigrant women stand out. Only an uncommon tenacity allows them to complete this journey full of deception, traveling from Haiti across the continent toward Mexico. They hope to apply for asylum in the United States, but most are stuck in Tapachula, Mexico (on the border with Guatemala) instead of Tijuana (on the border with the United States) due to the tightening of Mexican migration policies influenced by the Trump administration. The report by the Institute for Women in Migration (IMUMI), the Haitian Bridge Alliance, and the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS), "A Journey of Hope: Haitian Women's Migration to Tapachula, Mexico" (executive summary in Spanish), reveals and denounces the intersectional abuses experienced by Haitian immigrant women during this journey and upon arrival in Tapachula. For this population, invisible until now, this report is the first step toward defending their human rights. Hopefully other initiatives aimed at making these realities visible will follow.

The United States and the new Biden administration

At the beginning of a new decade, in the United States, although the new President Biden ordered a 100-day moratorium on deportations, a Texas judge suspended its implementation and deportations resumed. With the increase in deportation flights to Haiti, migrant-rights advocates and certain members of Congress quickly denounced the decision and pressed for those flights to stop. They observed that among the Haitians deported were pregnant women and very young children.

With all these regional efforts to denounce bad practices and abuses against Haitian immigrants, especially women, we must now listen to the voices in these testimonies in order to guarantee their human rights. Let us join together to travel this road, denouncing with "Enough already!" and putting an end to the disrespect for dignity, and instead making real the rights of our Haitian sisters and brothers.

This article is available in French: Les femmes migrantes haitiennes dans la ligne de mire

This article is available in English: Migrant Haitian women in the line of fire