In a metropolis dominated by gangs, younger rape survivor raises child she was instructed to abort

[ad_1] Nawal Al-Maghafi and Jasmin Dyer BBC World Service, reporting from Port-au-Prince

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/fff4/live/07cab270-66df-11f0-8125-eb8e325e77d1.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/fff4/live/07cab270-66df-11f0-8125-eb8e325e77d1.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/fff4/live/07cab270-66df-11f0-8125-eb8e325e77d1.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/fff4/live/07cab270-66df-11f0-8125-eb8e325e77d1.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/fff4/live/07cab270-66df-11f0-8125-eb8e325e77d1.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/fff4/live/07cab270-66df-11f0-8125-eb8e325e77d1.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/fff4/live/07cab270-66df-11f0-8125-eb8e325e77d1.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/fff4/live/07cab270-66df-11f0-8125-eb8e325e77d1.jpg.webp" loading="eager" alt="BBC/ Phil Pendlebury Woman in a white T-shirt and trousers, seated and pictured from the shoulders to the knees, with a baby in an animal print dress lying across her lap, asleep. The woman's hands are clasped together and resting lightly on the baby." class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> BBC/ Phil Pendlebury Helene says the gang instructed her to have an abortion however she wished to maintain her child and managed to flee

Warning: This story accommodates accounts of rape and different violence that readers could discover distressing.

Helene was 17 years previous when a gang attacked her neighbourhood within the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.

She strokes her child daughter, asleep in her lap, whereas describing how armed males kidnapped her as she tried to flee, and held her for over two months.

"They raped me and beat me each single day. A number of completely different males. I did not even know their names, they have been masked," says the younger girl, whose title we've modified to guard her id. "A number of the issues they did to me are too painful to share with you."

"I fell pregnant, they saved telling me I need to abort the being pregnant and I stated 'no'. This child might be the one one I ever have."

She managed to flee whereas the gang was caught up in preventing to keep up territory. Now 19, she has spent the previous 12 months elevating her daughter in a secure home in a suburb of town.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/d494/live/9fdb3460-66f1-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/d494/live/9fdb3460-66f1-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/d494/live/9fdb3460-66f1-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/d494/live/9fdb3460-66f1-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/d494/live/9fdb3460-66f1-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/d494/live/9fdb3460-66f1-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/d494/live/9fdb3460-66f1-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/d494/live/9fdb3460-66f1-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="BBC/ Phil Pendlebury Two young men with their heads and faces covered by black hoods and masks, except for their eyes, facing the camera. The one on the right is wearing a blue T-shirt and red shorts, and carrying a large gun. The one on the left is in a white vest and pale yellow shorts." class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> BBC/ Phil Pendlebury Gangs are estimated to regulate about 90% of Port-au-Prince

The secure home is dwelling to no less than 30 women and younger girls who sleep in bunk beds in colourfully painted rooms.

Helene is the oldest rape survivor right here. The youngest is simply 12. Enjoying and dancing on the balcony in a blue polka dot gown, she seems a lot youthful than her age, having suffered from malnutrition prior to now. Workers inform us she has been raped a number of occasions.

Rape and different sexual violence is surging in Haiti as armed gangs develop their management throughout Port-au-Prince and past.

The Caribbean island nation has been engulfed in a wave of gang violence because the assassination in 2021 of the then-president, Jovenel Moïse.

It's laborious to measure the size of sexual violence. Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) runs a clinic in central Port-au-Prince for ladies who've skilled sexual abuse. Knowledge it has shared completely with the BBC reveals affected person numbers have almost tripled since 2021.

The gangs are recognized for sweeping into neighbourhoods and killing dozens of individuals. MSF says a number of gang rapes of girls and women are sometimes a part of these large-scale assaults. From survivors' accounts, it's clear that gangs have been utilizing rape to terrorise and subjugate total communities.

The BBC has challenged gang leaders about accounts of killings and rapes. One beforehand instructed us they don't management the actions of their members and imagine they've a "responsibility" to struggle the state. One other stated "after we are preventing we're possessed - we're now not human".

WATCH: "Individuals have been hacked to demise” - BBC accompanies resident again to dwelling destroyed in main gang assault in Port-au-Prince

"Sufferers have began to share very, very troublesome tales since 2021," says Diana Manilla Arroyo, MSF's head of mission in Haiti.

"Survivors speak about two or 4 or seven, or as much as 20 aggressors," she says, including that extra girls now say they've been threatened with weapons or knocked unconscious.

Ladies are additionally reporting extra ceaselessly that their assailants are underneath 18, she provides.

In a drop-in centre in one other a part of town, 4 girls – ranging in age from late 20s to 70 – describe being attacked in entrance of their youngsters and husbands.

"Our neighbourhood was attacked, I went again dwelling solely to search out my mum, my dad, my sister, all have been murdered. They killed them after which burnt the home down, with them inside it," one girl says.

After surveying her devastated dwelling, she was about to go away the neighbourhood when she encountered gang members. "They raped me – I had my six-year-old with me. They raped her too," she continues. "Then they killed my youthful brother in entrance of us."

"At any time when my daughter seems at me, she's unhappy and crying."

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/bc73/live/4be02750-6802-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/bc73/live/4be02750-6802-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/bc73/live/4be02750-6802-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/bc73/live/4be02750-6802-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/bc73/live/4be02750-6802-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/bc73/live/4be02750-6802-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/bc73/live/4be02750-6802-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/bc73/live/4be02750-6802-11f0-8dbd-f3d32ebd3327.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="BBC/ Phil Pendlebury Four women, sitting on grey plastic chairs, pictured from behind, speaking to BBC reporter Nawal Al-Maghafi. They are in a room with pink painted walls and a tiled floor. " class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> BBC/ Phil Pendlebury 4 girls shared accounts of being raped in entrance of their husbands and youngsters

The opposite girls recount assaults that comply with an identical sample – homicide, rape and arson.

Sexual violence is only one component of the disaster that has engulfed Haiti. UN businesses say greater than a tenth of the inhabitants – 1.3 million folks – have fled their properties, and half the inhabitants faces acute starvation.

Haiti has had no elected management because the assassination of Moïse. A Transitional Presidential Council and a sequence of prime ministers it has appointed are tasked with working the nation and organising elections.

Rival gangs have fashioned an alliance, turning their weapons on the Haitian state fairly than one another.

Since we final visited in December, the state of affairs has deteriorated. Lots of of 1000's extra folks have been displaced. Greater than 4,000 folks have been killed within the first half of 2025, in comparison with 5,400 in the entire of 2024, in response to the UN.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/7f8b/live/45f3f4e0-66f2-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/7f8b/live/45f3f4e0-66f2-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/7f8b/live/45f3f4e0-66f2-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/7f8b/live/45f3f4e0-66f2-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/7f8b/live/45f3f4e0-66f2-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/7f8b/live/45f3f4e0-66f2-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/7f8b/live/45f3f4e0-66f2-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/7f8b/live/45f3f4e0-66f2-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Guerinault Louis/Anadolu/Getty Images People in a makeshift shelter in Port-au-Prince, sitting and lying on mats on a concrete floor, with lines of washing strung above them. Several water buckets and piles of possessions can be seen in the background." class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> Guerinault Louis/Anadolu/Getty Pictures Greater than a tenth of Haiti's inhabitants has been displaced, in response to the UN

The gangs are estimated to have elevated their management from 85% to 90% of the capital, seizing key neighbourhoods, commerce routes and public infrastructure, regardless of efforts by a Kenyan-led, UN-backed safety drive.

We be part of the worldwide drive as they patrol a gang-controlled space, however inside minutes, one of many tyres on their armoured automobile is shot out and the operation ends.

Members of the drive not often depart their armoured automobiles. Specialists say the gangs proceed to accumulate highly effective weapons and keep the higher hand.

In latest months, the Haitian authorities have contracted mercenaries to assist wrest again management.

A supply throughout the Haitian safety forces instructed the BBC that personal navy corporations, together with one from the US, are working on the bottom, and utilizing drones to assault gang leaders.

He confirmed us drone footage he says is of 1 gang chief, Ti Lapli, being focused in an explosion. He says Ti Lapli was left in a essential situation, although the BBC has not been capable of verify this.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/b68f/live/5c3fe920-66ed-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/b68f/live/5c3fe920-66ed-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/b68f/live/5c3fe920-66ed-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/b68f/live/5c3fe920-66ed-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/b68f/live/5c3fe920-66ed-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/b68f/live/5c3fe920-66ed-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/b68f/live/5c3fe920-66ed-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/b68f/live/5c3fe920-66ed-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="BBC/ Phil Pendlebury Man in black balaclava-style headgear, with only his eyes and part of his forehead visible, in a street in Port-au-Prince. He is wearing a black T-shirt and carries a gun. A group of other men, mainly in shorts and T-shirts, are in the background looking on." class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> BBC/ Phil Pendlebury Neighbourhood vigilante teams have began taking safety into their very own fingers

However across the metropolis, the worry of the gangs stays. In lots of neighbourhoods, vigilante teams are taking safety into their very own fingers, additional rising the numbers of younger males with weapons on the streets.

"We're not going to allow them to [the gangs] come right here and kill us – steal all the pieces we've, burn automobiles, burn homes, kill children," says a person utilizing the title "Mike".

He says he operates with a gaggle in Croix-des-Prés, a bustling market space near gang-controlled territory.

As gunfire rings out within the distance, no-one flinches. Individuals listed here are used to it.

He says the gangs pay younger boys to hitch, and arrange checkpoints the place they demand cash from residents passing by means of.

"In fact everyone seems to be afraid," he tells us. "We really feel alone making an attempt to guard the ladies and youngsters. Because the gangs maintain spreading, we all know our space might be subsequent."

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/a527/live/57dfbf20-66f4-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/a527/live/57dfbf20-66f4-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/a527/live/57dfbf20-66f4-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/a527/live/57dfbf20-66f4-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/a527/live/57dfbf20-66f4-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/a527/live/57dfbf20-66f4-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/a527/live/57dfbf20-66f4-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/a527/live/57dfbf20-66f4-11f0-a08d-214bf7cc019d.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="BBC/ Phil Pendlebury Aerial photo of an area in Port-au-Prince, where a section of small buildings has been reduced to rubble, and other buildings are left without roofs." class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> BBC/ Phil Pendlebury The gang violence has left entire neighbourhoods broken and destroyed

Humanitarian businesses say the state of affairs is deteriorating and ladies are among the many hardest hit, with a lot of them going through the double trauma of sexual violence and displacement.

Lola Castro, the regional director of the UN's World Meals Programme, says Port-au-Prince "is the worst place on this planet to be a girl".

Ladies listed here are additionally prone to really feel the impression of cuts to humanitarian help programmes, she provides.

Haiti has lengthy been one of many largest recipients of funding from the US Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID), which President Donald Trump has slashed, dubbing it "wasteful".

Once we visited in June, Ms Castro stated the WFP was distributing its final shares of US-funded meals help.

Meals provision protects girls, she defined, as a result of it saves them from having to be out within the streets begging or in search of meals.

Humanitarian employees right here additionally worry that cuts could quickly have an effect on help for victims of violence in locations just like the secure home the place Helene lives.

And Ms Manilla Arroyo from MSF says funding for contraception has additionally been lowered: "A lot of our sufferers have already got youngsters. A lot of them are underneath the age of 18 with youngsters. The danger of being pregnant represents many, many new challenges for them."

Helene and different girls within the secure home usually sit and chat collectively on a balcony that appears out throughout Port-au-Prince, however a lot of them are too afraid to go away the safety of its partitions.

She doesn't understand how she is going to help her younger daughter as she grows up.

"I at all times dreamt of going to high school, to study and to make one thing of myself," she says. "I at all times knew I might have youngsters, simply not this younger."