The United Nations Population Fund (UFPA) recalls that the lives of thousands of women and girls in Haiti are in danger because they cannot receive essential sexual and reproductive health care amid the wave of violence that is going through the country.

Some 85,000 women are pregnant, of whom some 30,000 will give birth amid the crisis over the next three months. Among them, women and girls as young as 9 years old, who said they had been raped by gang members fighting for control of neighborhoods.

Haiti already has the highest maternal mortality rate in Latin America and the Caribbean. Today, with the intensification of inter-gang clashes in the capital and many essential services and health facilities still damaged or destroyed in the south of the country after the earthquake of August 14, 2021 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34479-haiti-flash-magnitude-72-earthquake-in-the-nippes-updated-10am.html humanitarian needs are skyrocketing.

More than 4.9 million people need assistance, including 1.3 million women of childbearing age.

UFPA field staff help survivors of gender-based violence seek legal, psychosocial, and medical assistance, distribute health supplies and sunlamps, and refer pregnant women with complications for obstetric care and neonatal emergency.

HL/ HaitiLibre