On the occasion of World Rural Women's Day, the peasant women of Haiti stand up to make their voices heard. - 15 October 2006

Press release, 13 October 2006

On the occasion of World Rural Women's Day, we, delegates of women's peasant organisations from six of the country's ten departments, are standing up to make our voices heard.

It is us, peasant women, who are the motor of the economy. In the agricultural sector, it is peasant women who do the weeding, who do the tidying up, who do the planting, who do the watering, who bring in the harvest, and who take the produce to sell at the market, even though we don't get a good price. At the market, we vendors have to put up with bad conditions.

When we look in our yards, peasant women are rearing all kinds of livestock - chickens, goats, pigs, sheep, cattle, etc. Despite this, peasant women are not valued in our society We don't benefit from any social services. We don't eat well. We don't have good housing. We don't have schools for our children. We don't have hospitals. We die during childbirth. We are living in such bad conditions, and today today one of the worst diseases that is killing us, our husbands, and our children, is Chik. (Chik fever is a disease caused by the Chikungunya virus that is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected mosquitoes.)

In the Chaine de Mateaux mountains, in the seventh section of Fond Batis, five people died from Chik fever between April and September 2006. In the fifth section of Verettes, one person has died. There have been outbreaks of Chik fever in the communes of Cornillon and Savenette too.

We call on the government to assume its responsibilities, for it to take measures to reduce the amount of foreign produce coming in to the country and making it difficult to sell peasants' produce in public markets;

At the same time, we are asking the government to take measures to increase national production, so that peasants and other people who live in this country don't have to consume foriegn products like turkey wings, chicken drumsticks, pigs' ears, etc.

When we see peasant women working on other peoples' land and having to give the landowner half of their harvest, while State-owned land is left idle, we call on the State to put land at the disposal of peasants, so that they can work in good conditions. And we call on the State to give them necessary back-up, so that the land can be productive.

When we see the ugly problem of Chik fever, we call on the Minister of Public Health to take the necessary measures to get rid of Chik fever and stop the disease from killing peasants.

It is us, women peasants, who are the very soul of the country's economy. But it is we, women peasants, who don't get any support from the State, and it is we, women peasants, who get no benefit from social services. In this context, we call on other women's peasant organisations to stand in solidarity with us in order to force the State to support us in every sense.

Our only strength is good organisation and well-coordinated action!

On 15 October there will be a demonstration in the commune of Gros Morne, and rallies in the communes of Cornillon, Jean Rabel, Bèdeyèn, Port-de-Paix and Jérémie.

The representatives of the four organisations signing this press release are:

FEPPAM (Federasyon Peyizan Patizan Makandal): Vernicia Joseph
Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen Gromòn: Simone Pierre,
Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen Nòdwès: Vernicia Joseph
MRPST (Mouvement Revandikasyon Peyizan San Tè): Louimène Cénoble
Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen Piyon: Marie Françoise
MOFOD (Mouvement Fanm Onzyèm ak Douzyèm seksyon Ti Gwàv)

(translated from Creole by Charles Arthur for the Haiti Support Group)
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'Ideas and Action - Projecting the voices of Haiti's progressive civil society organisations' is a Haiti Support Group project funded by the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF).

Volume One

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