Governmental Failures

The government of Haiti, perhaps unsurprisingly, is responsible at least in some part for the state of human rights in Haiti, whether intentionally or otherwise. The human rights situation in Haiti has worsened significantly due the state decreasing rights in areas such as freedom of expression and the government has not taken credible steps or action to identify and punish officials who committed human rights abuses (9). There have been credible reports of police involvement in vigilante killings (9). The poor handling of, or inability to deal with, gang violence, has led to gangs running rampant through Port-Au-Prince (the capital and largest City in Haiti) (9). Further combined with large amounts of Police Brutality leads to a bleak picture for human rights in the capital.

In addition, forced labor and free speech violations are also common throughout the decades since the end of the U.S. occupation. Further, the government was forced to pay massive amounts of reparations to the French after independence (although this wasn’t necessarily something that the Haitian government could have prevented), and the reparation payments crippled the Haitian economy and its ability to grow and develop in any meaningful way.