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Culture

Black Lives Matter answering to the call from Haiti

Following the crippling Hurricane Matthew on October 2016, Black Lives Matter(BLM) Cambridge partnered with a number of Haitian organizations (Vertiver, Kouraj, and Kolectif Kay Kok- Sakage) to send aids to a number of grassroots associations. BLM has extended long term support by supplying resources to repair damaged homes, install solar posts, and provide water purifiers and donated specific items like LED lamps, solar panels, water filters, etc for as many communities as possible.

Black Lives Matter is a chapter-based national organization in the United states that is working for the validity of Black life. It is a call to action and a response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates the United States of America. It was was created in 2012 after 17-year old Trayvon Martin's murderer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted for his crime.

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Restavec Outlawed: Haitians to be Educated on its Criminality

Modern-day slavery or human trafficking, as it is officially known, thrives in Haiti under the name restavec. It is a shadow community benefiting from enforced child labor due to poor Haitians' inability to provide for their children. In 2014 Haiti's legislature passed a law criminalizing the practice of restavec, which now demands the arrests of those engaging in it.

How children end up becoming domestic slaves, suffering neglect and abuse, happens as a result of poor parents' desperation. They cannot afford to feed and clothe their children, so they send them to to live with better-off families with assurances the children will be taken care of in return for performing domestic duties.

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kreyol ayisyen or Haitian Creole, a fusion of other languages

The term "Creole" comes from a Portugese word meaning "raised in the home". The language resulted and developed probably after 1680 and before 1730 from the efforts of African slaves who wanted to speak the French they heard when they arrived in the European plantations in the colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). African slaves came from many different parts of West Africa and they used to speak many different languages. On any one plantation, several African languages were spoken. They were seldom able to communicate among themselves in a common African tongue. The slaves, on their arrivals in Haiti, first came into the contacts with the French settlers, speaking several dialectal forms of French as they also came from different parts of France. Thus, as a common mean to communicate, the slaves tried to learn Popular French .

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Sexual violence against Women in Haiti

Sexual violence against women in Haiti is widespread and has a long history. There are records of women being raped by soldier that arrived in Haiti with Christopher Columbus from 1492.

When Haiti was the French colony known as Saint-Domingue (1625 - 1789) rape was a popular method of torture in the slavery based economy. Sexual violence was also rife during the Haitian Revolution (1789 - 1804) and the American occupation of Haiti (1915 - 1934).

In an effort to suppress political opposition, thousands of women were subjected to sexual violence during the dictatorships of Francois Duvalier, Jean-Claude Duvalier and Raoul Cedras, in the 20th century.

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Haitian Women, the backbone of the Economy

Haitian women make up over half of the population, and arguably form the backbone of the Haitian economy. A graphical, visual, and metaphorical illustration of this can be witnessed daily in Haiti as women, wearing toks on their heads, carry heavy loads including water, food, market goods and even construction material around for miles in areas such as Port-au-Prince, Cabaret, The Central Plateau, Gonaives and Cap Haitien. All to earn an average wage of just $1 - $2 a day in a struggling economy.

Nevertheless it is clear that women are undervalued and treated as lower-class citizens compared with men. Carrying water using toks is still considered 'woman's work' for example, and they routinely face issues such as wage discrimination.

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Should there be a Bar for Gay and Lesbian to meet in Haiti?

I think we need to start talking about this subject. Is there room for people who are gay or lesbian in Haiti? Due to several incidents of violence on gay and lesbian people in Haiti recently, many think that Haiti is one of the most hostile countries in the world in regard to LGBT. If you listen to the demonstrators protesting against gay and lesbian in Haiti, you would believe that there is no room for these people in Haiti. Some members of the society think it's OK to even commit physical violence against anyone who expresses these tendencies.

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Haitian Nurse suing hospital for teasing with Voodoo Doll

We all probably experienced this one time or another; however one Haitian nurse working in Long Island hospital is doing something about it. Diana St. Gerard who is a light skin Haitian nurse has been discriminated by other staff members for her background. They assume that because she is Haitian, therefore, she must be practicing "Black magic" and Voodoo.

According to Diana St. Gerard, the white staff at Long Island hospital made her life a living hell there. During the nine years that she worked in the mental health unit she was faced with many incidents of discrimination. Nurses have told St. Gerard that she looked like a voodoo doll; another staff member actually brought a voodoo doll at the Hospital once.

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Rural Haitian Children have strong sense of family obligation

A study recently conducted by the University of Illinois has highlighted a surprising trend among Haitian teens, and has also highlighted, in some aspects, how they differ from those in a much richer country.

While not having been directly impacted from a financial standpoint by the earthquake in 2010, Haitian teens are adapted to living in states of poverty not dreamt of by most American teens. According to the study, what has been found is that those Haitian teens living in mostly rural areas of Haiti, who suffer from the direst cases of poverty, have little knowledge of, or the desire to follow the more American lifestyle.

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Mauritania and Haiti, two countries with highest slave population

It is said that human trafficking is the modern form of slavery, and with Haiti and Mauritania to judge by, emancipation may be an outdated term that no longer holds up in water today. With the statistics stating that some nearly 30 million people are living under varying kinds of involuntary servitude, slavery is still a scourge on humanity today. The problem is that it has taken on new names. But, does this rose smell any less like slavery?

Debt bondage, sexual exploitation and forced marriages are some of the new euphemisms used to make modern day slavery more inconspicuous and in the two mentioned countries the trick seems to be working. While Mauritania and Haiti hold the highest proportions of people considered to be slaves, China, India and Pakistan hold the highest absolute numbers. The transgressors in these countries operate against the mandate of the international treaty, the 1926 Slavery Convention as well as the UN Trafficking Protocol.

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Haiti too Rich to be Poor, Mole Saint-Nicolas Development Plan

This statement is so true. Haiti is really too rich to be poor, based on its geographic location and resources. I am going to take Mole Saint-Nicolas as an example.

Earlier this week, a draft Strategic Development Plan of Mole Saint-Nicolas was presented to the government. The development is focused on four major areas: the development of maritime corridor, the promotion of Haiti history and tourism, development of alternative energy production and the exploitation of natural resources.

According to the developers, Mole Saint-Nicolas is located in the best possible location to take advantage of the channel of the wind and the depth of its coastal waters. The development of wind and solar renewable energy is a big potential.

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