Following calls from the administration for foreign aid to stop the cruelty, the United Nations Human Rights Council recently decided to offer assistance in the violently devastated country of Haiti.
The council requested that Haiti get “technical assistance and support for capacity-building in the promotion and protection of human rights,” as well as the appointment of an expert to keep tabs on the situation.
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Since the death of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021, Haiti, an impoverished nation, has been engulfed in a political and economic catastrophe, and gangs currently govern more than half of the nation.
The council was informed by Haiti’s envoy Justin Viard that the barbarism of the gangs has hit a “high water mark” because they “kidnap, execute, and burn alive old people, children, pregnant women.”
The floor was filled with diplomats who expressed their support.
According to French ambassador Jerome Bonnafont, Haiti is dealing with one of the greatest levels of poverty and terrorism in the whole globe.
“The scale of the problems is such that it requires the full attention and support of the international community.”
Since the year’s beginning, gangs in Haiti had killed more than 530 people, prompting a warning from the UN rights office that the violence seemed to be out of control.
It claimed that due to rising food prices, half the population is going hungry.
In October, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres requested the UN Security Council to dispatch an international force to Haiti after receiving a request for assistance from Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Even while several governments have expressed support for such a mission, nothing has yet been done about the idea.
The UN member states and pertinent UN agencies were urged in Tuesday’s resolution, which was adopted without a vote, to assist Haiti’s government in its efforts “to confront the brutality of the armed gangs.”
It gave the UN rights office the go-ahead to deliver technical support to strengthen the promotion and protection of human rights inside Haiti’s judicial system, security apparatus, and prison administration in an effort to restore the rule of law.
The council requested that the office quickly designate a specialist to keep an eye on Haiti’s human rights situation, giving particular attention to women, children, and human trafficking.
Additionally, the resolution mandated that Volker Turk, the UN’s director of human rights, provide a preliminary report to the council in September and a final report in March of the following year on the situation in Haiti.
