As Haiti prepares to mark the first anniversary of last year’s devastating earthquake that killed 230,000 people, Amnesty International is warning that Haitian women and girls are facing an increasing threat of sexual violence. Amnesty said more than 250 cases of rape in several makeshift camps were reported in the first 150 days after the earthquake on January 12, 2010. Gerardo Ducos is a researcher for Amnesty in Haiti.

Gerardo Ducos: “The women and girls are being attacked under their shelters in the camps, dragged by a group of men into a secluded area or into another tent, and just being raped there, because in most of the camps, there is no lighting at night or even in the street, so obviously that creates an environment that is conducive to these kind of aggressions.”

Amnesty called on the Haitian police and international community to address the issue.

Gerardo Ducos: “The overcrowding of the camps, the lack of security, the lack of protective measures that actually prevent or respond to sexual violence is — and the lack of capacity of the Haitian police to respond to this report — to reports of sexual violence, has all compounded a humanitarian crisis, and women and girls are actually paying the price for it.”