People outside a Haitian prison bring food to inmates (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
Detainees are often left without water, food or medicine, in overcrowded rooms and have to wait years for a trial
In Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, which has been experiencing a very serious political, social and economic crisis for some time, prison conditions continue to deteriorate: they are often overcrowded, prisoners are left without water, food and care when they are sick . To make matters worse, violence at the hands of criminal gangs, which are now thriving in the country, is widespread, making the few forms of help detainees have been able to count on even more difficult.
According to lawyer Arnel Rémy, coordinator of the Association of Lawyers for the Defense of Human Rights in Haiti, a “humanitarian catastrophe” is happening in the country’s prisons.
Haiti, a country of about 11 million people, has 17 prisons, five of which are under construction, are overcrowded and have prison conditions largely below international standards. The Associated Press reported how the inmates of the national prison of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, live: It is the largest prison in the country and houses about 4,000 inmates, although it was built to house about 800 inmates.
Inside are dozens of tuberculosis prisoners who receive little care: many are arrested for petty crimes such as theft. In general, detainees do not receive enough water or food, and many report that they sleep standing up because the cells are overcrowded and there is not enough space to lie down. Others reported that they defecated in shared buckets inside the cell and that the prison was often without power for months due to failures in the power generators that could not be quickly repaired.
The poor conditions in Haiti’s prisons are nothing new and are often discussed. Last year, for example, the Haitian government released more than 70 prisoners convicted of minor crimes after videos circulated online showing their poor health. More often, however, the prisoner’s conditions remain unknown and ignored.
In Haiti, more than 80 percent of the more than 11,000 total detainees are in pre-trial detention: however, trial times are very long and according to various human rights experts and lawyers who have looked into her conditions over time, it could be years before she is imprisoned will be heard by a judge and brought to trial. Numerous cases of arbitrary arrests have also been documented, with the authorities arresting people on unspecified charges.
A study released last December by researchers at a Florida university, based on the conditions of more than 1,000 inmates in two prisons in Haiti, including the National Penitentiary, concluded that most of them were on a diet of fewer than 500 calories per day were dependent. less than half of the daily requirement, and that more than 75 percent were at risk of a variety of conditions also related to vitamin deficiencies.
According to the United Nations, 185 prisoners died in Haiti last year, many of them as a result of malnutrition. 20 people have died this year alone.
According to various experts in the field, the numbers could increase due to the consequences of the country’s political and social crisis, which the numerous criminal gangs active in the country have been exploiting for some time: these gangs have become very influential in recent years, they have alliances and connections exploited with Haitian politicians to increase their power. They control large tracts of land, roads and ports, have blocked fuel, electricity and food supplies in the past and have been responsible for kidnappings and murders.
All of this complicates the few forms of support the detainees could count on. Many of them depend on relatives and acquaintances to bring them food and meals: In Haiti it is not uncommon to see dozens of people outside prisons, often women, with bags of food for the inmates, with the name of the prisoner and the prisoner Cell.
Many of them are at risk of being involved in episodes of street violence, a risk that the prison staff themselves are also taking: last May, for example, a police officer was hit by a bullet after his release from prison. In other cases, people cannot reach the prison because public transport is not working or because the streets are blocked by gangs. There are also those who do not have a network of people outside the prison who could help them: this is the case of a prisoner interviewed by the Associated Press who said he only eats some rice once a day.
People bring food to prisoners in a Haitian prison (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
Health Through Walls, a Florida nonprofit that provides medical care to inmates in various prisons around the world, regularly provides nutritional supplements to Haitian inmates to prevent malnutrition and has taught dozens of them how to recognize a sick person in prison, as insecurity and instability in the country prevent most of the medical staff from doing their jobs.
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