Vote for MADRE in the Third Annual Gender Justice Uncovered Awards

MADRE is proud to announce some exciting news! 

We have been nominated for the Third Annual Gender Justice Uncovered Awards, which recognizes advances in international law for women’s human rights.  This incredible honor acknowledges our recent victory, when the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) ruled in favor of our legal petition on sexual violence in Haiti. 

In that petition, we demanded immediate and concrete action from the Haitian government to protect the lives of women and girls facing an epidemic of rape in the displacement camps of Haiti.

The People’s Choice Awards will be granted to the nominee that receives the most votes from the public. To learn how to vote, click here.

About the Ruling of the IACHR on Sexual Violence:

The IACHR’s decision is the first ever to recognize that Haiti, like all states, has a responsibility to prevent violence against women, regardless of the perpetrator. Of the hundreds of petitions the Commission receives each year, few are granted. Out of these, only a handful have been granted to protect women from rape, and those have been in response to rape committed by the state -- never by private individuals. 

Moreover, this ruling applies to an unnamed group of the women and girls facing the threat of sexual violence in the displacement camps.  This is another striking precedent.  Previously, protections issued for women under threat of sexual violence have only been applied to specific, individual women.

In contrast, this decision calls on the Haitian government to protect the rights of all women and girls living in 22 displacement camps, precisely because they face an elevated threat of sexual violence. This precedent also helps to strengthen international law’s recognition of women’s human rights, including the right to be free from sexual violence.

 

Read our previous blog entry and press release related to this topic.