Women—especially those who are pregnant, or nursing infants—and young girls are two of the most vulnerable communities living in the settlement camps for displaced earthquake survivors in and around Port-au-Prince. Of the hundreds of thousands of women and girls living in these settlements, an estimated 60,000 women were in need of basic prenatal care, and thousands required access to reproductive health care. In early March, PIH/ZL responded to this need by introducing Proje Sante Fanm (women’s health project) tents in the four settlements where we work.
Proje Sante Fanm offers women medical care, advice, and refuge. Female nurses provide women with information about family planning, prenatal care, general reproductive and obstetrics and gynecology (ob-gyn) related information, in addition to testing and treatment for HIV and sexually transmitted infections. Psychosocial services and referrals to medical and legal services are also available to survivors of sexual violence. As women with infants are a particularly vulnerable population, PIH/ZL, in cooperation with UNICEF, is staffing and maintaining baby tents--safe spaces where women with infants can go to nurse and seek medical advice.
PIH/ZL has hired and trained 60 Ajan Sante (women’s health agents) to find, assist, and refer women and infants throughout the settlement camps in which we are working. We have also hired 12 traditional birth attendants who are currently helping roughly 50 women to give birth each month in the largest settlement, Parc Jean-Marie Vincent (PJMV).
In addition to providing services, PIH/ZL staff has been working with women’s committees in the camps, especially at PJMV. We accompany these women as they establish committees in conjunction with the men’s committees—developing a voice in the camp’s governing structures. PIH/ZL advocates for these women, but we also finance celebrations and community activities organized by them. On Haitian Mother’s Day, PIH/ZL supported women’s committees to host events that included music, dance, education on sexual violence, soccer, and a cash-for-work program. We have hired security committees to patrol the camps at night in an effort aimed at protecting women from sexual violence. In mid-June, ZL staff led large group discussions with women living in the camps where they discussed self-defense strategies and other ways to avoid assault.
PIH/ZL staff in the Central Plateau and Artibonite departments have also continued projects begun prior to the earthquake. ZL staff continued administering Gardasil vaccinations—used to prevent infection with human papillomavirus (HPV), a known cause of cervical cancer— to thousands of girls between the ages of 10 and 13 who had received their first of three dosages prior to the earthquake. In June, PIH/ZL initiated a pilot HPV DNA testing program—tests that let women know if they are at high risk for HPV infection so that they can receive further medical attention, and then hopefully avoid the invasive cancer. Staff distributed these tests to women to do in the privacy of their own homes. Women who are diagnosed with cervical cancer are also finding treatment through a PIH/ZL-affiliated cancer research hospital in the Dominican Republic.
