UUSC Responds to Escalating Crisis in Haiti

Challenging Injustice, Advancing Human Rights

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee advances human rights through grassroots collaborations.

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Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH)

The Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH) and works to protect the rights of Haitians.
A POHDH group meeting.

LOCATION: Port-Au-Prince, Haiti

Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH) was formed by a coalition of human rights organizations in 1991 and has been in operation for more than 30 years. It is a national membership-based organization with eight members who work in different departments around Haiti.

Members rely on their organizing and engagement with local communities to inform their work, including representatives of those forcibly displaced by the 2010 and 2021 earthquakes, illegal state-sanctioned land grabs, disasters, corporate land theft, and the aftermath of the July 2021 assassination of Haiti’s former President Jovenel Moïse.

POHDH wants to continue to support the Haitian people in their struggle for respect for their fundamental rights. POHDH will therefore establish human rights documentation and advocacy activities. Since 2018, human rights violations have increased everywhere in Haiti.

With the deterioration of the nation’s security climate and the general living conditions of the population and the humanitarian disaster caused by the August 2021 earthquake in the departments of Sud, Nippes, and Grand’Anse, there has been a renewed call for human rights advocacy and activism across the nation.

POHDH’s work helps UUSC to understand the whole landscape of human rights issues in Haiti. Their work targets those who are not supported by Haiti’s government and international aid.

Image Credit: POHDH

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