UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk made a high-profile visit to Port-au-Prince in February 2023, spending several days meeting with survivors of gang violence, displaced families, healthcare workers, human rights defenders, and Haitian civil society organizations. The visit, notable for its direct engagement with affected communities rather than purely with government officials, produced the Commissioner’s stark public characterization of conditions as “beyond untenable.”
Türk’s meetings with survivors of sexual violence by gang networks were among the most affecting aspects of his visit. Women and girls who had experienced rape and other forms of sexual assault described their experiences with the Commissioner, providing firsthand testimony to the systematic nature of sexual violence as a tool of gang territorial control. The Commissioner’s willingness to listen directly to survivors and to name their experiences in subsequent public statements gave important international visibility to a dimension of Haiti’s crisis that often received less attention than the political and security dimensions.
The Commissioner also met with Haitian human rights defenders whose work was itself dangerous, documenting violations and advocating for accountability in an environment where those activities could attract violent retaliation. His acknowledgment of their courage and commitment, and his assurance of international solidarity, was meaningful to organizations that often felt unsupported and exposed in their difficult work.
Following the visit, Türk presented his findings to the UN Human Rights Council, using the platform to call for urgent international action on Haiti and to hold member states accountable for their response to a crisis whose severity the UN’s own monitoring documented comprehensively. The combination of direct community engagement and high-level advocacy made the visit one of the most impactful international engagements with Haiti’s human rights crisis in years.