CHRGJ's Previous Work in Haiti

The Right to Water

During the 2007-08 academic year, the International Human Rights Clinic (now the “Global Justice Clinic”) at NYU School of Law’s CHRGJ conducted a study on the right to water as a basic human right, looking at the public health impact of the lack of a functioning water and sanitation system in Port-de-Paix, Haiti. The project benefitted richly from close collaborations with partner organizations—Partners In Health, The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, and Zanmi Lasante—who jointly produced the report, Woch nan Soley: The Denial of the Right to Water in Haiti (2008). For more about the project and the report, please click here.

The Right to Food

Inspired by the success of the Right to Water project and report, the Center and its partners—Partners In Health, The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, and Zanmi Lasante—along with the International Human Rights Clinic (now the “Global Justice Clinic”) of 2009, embarked on a multidisciplinary study on the right to food in Haiti’s Plateau Central, a region that has been particularly affected by violations of the right to food in recent years. The project produced the report, Sak Vid Pa Kanpe: The Impact of U.S. Food Aid on Human Rights in Haiti (2010). To read more about the project and the report, click here.

Donor Accountability

Following the earthquake, the Center and its partners worked hard domestically to ensure that adequate measures and mechanisms were being put into place for donor accountability and rights-based reconstruction. This involved aggressive lobbying with relevant U.S. government entities, outreach to the media, and a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights with several partner organizations. This work endeavored to ensure the human rights of Haitians would undergird and guide donor accountability and reconstruction. For more, click here (reconstruction) and here (accountability). To read the brief submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, click here.

CHRGJ's Satterthwaite and Opgenhaffen in upcoming book on Haiti, Tectonic Shifts. Preorder the book now.

The earthquake in Haiti confronted emergency workers, public health professionals, and human rights workers with the interwoven issues of public health, development, and human rights. The Center’s Project on GBV (“the project”) aims to contribute meaningfully to the development of solutions to reduce rights violations. Designed following extensive consultations with grass-roots and human rights organizations in Haiti, the project’s goals are to determine, through empirical evidence, (a) the prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV), with an emphasis on sexual violence in camps for the internally displaced (“IDP camps”); and (b) what links, if any, exist between vulnerability to GBV and access to food and water in IDP camps in post-earthquake Haiti.

In order to examine the rates of GBV in IDP camps, the Project developed and implemented a household survey in several camps. The Project used quantitative data resulting from the survey to identify correlations between sexual violence and a variety of food-and water-related variables, as well as other variables related to economic and social rights. Preliminary results and observations were bolstered by qualitative data from focus group discussions and interviews with experts, survivors, and service providers to understand, contextualize, and question the correlations found through quantitative methods.

These methodologies were developed and implemented over the course of the 2010-11 academic year, the summer of 2011, and the fall of 2011 by several groups of students and interns working alongside the Project’s Primary Investigator, Professor of the GJC, and Faculty Director of the Center, Margaret Satterthwaite, and the Center’s Executive Director, Veerle Opgenhaffen, as Co-investigator. Teams from both the Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 GJC created and implemented the survey, and gathered qualitative data through focus groups and interviews. The Center’s summer interns and Scholar in Residence continued the work, conducting quantitative data analysis alongside coding and analysis of focus group data and interview results. The Fall 2011 GJC team completed data collection, planned a community report-back mechanism, and began a new project focused on the issue of sexual exchange and exploitation alongside partner organizations.

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Initial Outcomes and Findings

A briefing paper highlighting preliminary results of the household survey, administered in January 2011, was published in March in order to make public the most pressing and salient descriptive results of the survey. Among the findings were higher sexual violence prevalence rates than previously recorded in post-earthquake Haiti and heightened vulnerability among young women, particularly those experiencing severe food deprivation. To read the briefing paper, please click here. The final report, aggregating all of the quantitative and qualitative data, with in-depth analysis, will be published in the fall of 2011.

The Research Team

Project Director and Primary Investigator

• Margaret Satterthwaite, Director, Global Justice Clinic and Faculty Director, CHRGJ

Co-Investigator

• Veerle Opgenhaffen, Executive Director, CHRGJ

Principal Authors of the Report

• Farrell Brody, (GJC, Fall 2010, Research Assistant, Spring 2011)
• Nikki Reisch, (CHRGJ Intern, Summer 2011; Legal Intern, Fall 2011)
• Margaret Satterthwaite, (Professor of Clinical Law; Director, GJC)
• Justin Simeone, (CHRGJ Intern, Summer 2011; CHRGJ Scholar in Residence, 2011-12)

Core Research Team

• Farrell Brody: Lead, Survey and FGD Design and Implementation, (GJC, Fall 2010, Research Assistant, Spring 2011)
• Ellie Happel: Lead, FGD Design and Survey Implementation, (Research Assistant, Fall 2010; GJC, Spring 2011)
• Jean Roger Noel: Field Manager and Study Implementation, (Haitian Research Team Leader)
• Veerle Opgenhaffen: Study Design, Ethics, Survey and KII Implementation (Co-Investigator, Executive Director, CHRGJ)
• Nikki Reisch: Lead, Legal Analysis, KII Implementation, (CHRGJ Intern, Summer 2011; Legal Intern, Fall 2011)
• Margaret Satterthwaite: Supervision, Study Design, Implementation, and Analysis (Principal Investigator; Director, Global Justice Clinic and Faculty Director, CHRGJ)
• Justin Simeone: Lead, Data Analysis, KII Implementation, (CHRGJ Intern, Summer 2011; CHRGJ Scholar in Residence, 2011-12)
• Daniel Tillias: Field Project Advisor and Study Implementation (Haitian Team Research Leader)

Contributing NYU Researchers

• Naila Awan: Research, (GJC, Fall 2011)
• Isabelle Bourgeois: Research, (Center Associate, Spring 2011)
• Greger Calhan: FGD Design, (GJC, Spring 2011)
• Francesca Corbacho: Research, (Research Assistant, 2010-2011)
• Isabelle Figaro: (Research Assistant, Spring 2011; GJC, Fall 2011)
• Kelly Geoghegan: Ethics and IRB Review, (GJC, Fall 2010)
• Heather Gregorio: Research, (CHRGJ Intern, 2011-12)
• Susan Hu: KII Design (GJC, Spring 2011)
• Marleine Marcelin: Research (CHRGJ Intern, Summer 2011)
• P. Scott Moses: Research, (Lecturer, University of Maryland College Park)
• Trina JP Ng: Research, (Research Assistant, 2010-2011)
• Giulia Previti: Lead, Survey Design, (GJC, Fall 2010)
• Rosa Raffaelli: Research, (GJC, Fall 2011)
• Melissa Rowlett: Research, (CHRGJ Intern, Summer 2011)
• Leah Seldin-Sommer: Research, (Research Assistant, 2011-12, NYU School of Public Health)
• Emerson Sykes: KII Design and Implementation, (GJC, Spring 2011)
• Harya Tarekgen: Research, (Research Assistant, 2010-2011)

Haiti Field Research Team

• Michel-Ange Dagrain, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Jean Dider Deslorges, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Lubens Desrosiers, Lubens Desrosiers
• Mackenzy Dor, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Manassé Elusma, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Jean Rony Emile, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Junior Jean François, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Gloria Germain, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Jules Indieu, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Robenson JN.Julien, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Occean Nephtalie, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Rose Mercie Saintilmont, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Pierre Anderson Soulouque, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)
• Saint Hubert Talino, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team
• Jude Wesh, (Researcher, Haiti Field Team)