HAITI

The UPR of Haiti, originally scheduled for May 2010, was postponed due to the humanitarian situation following the earthquake in January 2010 and will now take place in October 2011.

In the context of the UPR, Amnesty International has made the following recommendations to Haiti.

Judicial system:

To name without delay the President of the Supreme Court and the President of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary and to proceed with the reform of the justice system;

provide security forces with adequate training and supervision in order to implement and ensure strict observance of international human rights standards, including the UN Basic Principles for the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials.

Protection of the rights of the child:

To adopt and implement without delay a Children’s Code incorporating the provisions of international human rights treaties, in particular the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst forms of Child Labour, and ILO Convention No. 138 on the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment;

To take all necessary measures to eliminate the practice of children in domestic service which has been referred to by the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery as a “modern form of slavery”;

To ensure that children in domestic service who are victims of ill-treatment, physical violence and sexual abuse have access to justice and reparation.

Violence against women and girls:

To ensure that the police provide a safe and confidential environment for women and girls to report sexual violence and that all such complaints are promptly, impartially and effectively investigated and prosecuted;

To provide legal assistance to victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence;

To decriminalize abortion in all circumstances, to provide safe and accessible abortion services for rape victims and women whose lives or health would be at risk from the continuation of pregnancy, and to guarantee accessible post-abortion care;

To ensure that legislative measures and programmes to prevent sexual violence are fully and effectively implemented at the national and local levels;

To ensure that judicial authorities are adequately trained in the provisions and application of international and regional human rights treaties which are binding on Haiti and have force of law in Haitian courts;

To collect comprehensive data across Haiti to systematically measure the nature and extent of violence against women and girls and to make the results public in both official languages;

To develop educational materials aimed at challenging discrimination and ending violence against girls and to incorporate these into the curriculum at all levels of the educational system.

Impunity:

To bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations regardless of how much time has elapsed since the commission of the crime;

To allocate the necessary resources to the judges in charge of the investigation of the killings of journalists in Haiti and bring those responsible to justice.

Prolonged pre-trial detention and prison overcrowding:

To take all the necessary measures, as a matter of urgency, to address the backlog of cases in prolonged pre-trial detention;

To guarantee all detainees a fair trial, in accordance with the provisions of article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and article 8 of the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, within a reasonable time frame;

To ensure that all detainees have prompt access to procedures allowing them to challenge the lawfulness of their detention before a judge, and to release them if their detention is found to be illegal;

To address the problem of overcrowding in prisons;

To incorporate into in Haitian legislation alternatives to detention, in accordance with the UN Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures.

How you can help

Donate

Join

Take Action

HAITI

How you can help

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL WORLDWIDE