UN monitoring organizations documented sexual violence in Haiti at epidemic levels in 2024, with the Gender-Based Violence sub-cluster reporting 5,400 cases of gender-based violence between January and October — 72 percent involving sexual violence allegedly committed mostly by members of criminal groups. The figures represented a continuing escalation from already alarming previous years and placed Haiti among the worst situations globally for sexual violence as a tool of conflict.
The systematic nature of the sexual violence — targeting women and girls in specific communities to terrorize populations, enforce gang territorial control, and punish communities associated with resistance — was documented in reports from multiple monitoring organizations. The pattern was consistent with the use of sexual violence as a deliberate military tactic, not as opportunistic criminal behavior, though both dimensions were present in the overall picture.
Survivors had access to almost no support services. Medical care for rape survivors — emergency contraception, treatment for sexually transmitted infections, physical injury care — was available in only a handful of facilities that many survivors could not safely reach. Psychosocial support was even more scarce. The legal pathway to justice was essentially nonexistent. Many survivors did not report their experiences at all, meaning that the documented cases significantly understated the actual prevalence.
International organizations called for emergency investment in GBV services in Haiti, arguing that the scale of sexual violence as a tool of conflict required a response commensurate with its severity. They demanded that women’s protection and support be treated as integral to the international security and humanitarian response, not as an afterthought. The systematic failure to provide adequate services for survivors was itself a human rights violation adding injury to the initial crime.