There is No Domestic Violence in Haiti

Usually children were brought to the clinic by their mother. I had one girl brought in by her father because her mother had died in the quake. So, when I had a twelve year old girl come in alone who was complaining of a discharge of her "virgin" (that is what they all called their vagina) i was suspicious. I learned her mother had died during the time of the quake. Her father had given her to an aunt to raise along with the aunt's four other children. After questioning and reviewing her her chart I discovered she had been raped by her twenty-four year old cousin and his friend. The little girl, named Loudna, at twelve years old weighed only sixty pounds and was about five feet tall. She had learned the English pharas, "I am hungry" very well. She repeated this phrase over and over. While Earla kept Loudna in the exam room and fed her snacks we had brought for our lunches I went to talk to Yanick, the clinic director. She told me "There is no such thing as domestic violence in Haiti". By that she meant there is no law against it, so it is not considered a crime. Girls in Haiti can be raped by their grandfather, father, brother, neighbor, etc. and nothing will be done about it.

Yanick told me she knows this family and the little girl IS hungry. She told me the family may eat every other day, and even then it is only rice. I returned to Loudna and Earla to find Earla still feeding her.

I have been to Guatemala to an orphanage where all the girls there have been sexually abused and I remembered something one of the girls there said one time. I asked Loudna if she knew what being a virgin is and she said "yes". I proceded to tell her what the young girl in Guatemala had said. I told her she is still a virgin until she chooses to give her virginity away. What happened to her was a crime, ot her fault, and those men could not take her virginity. I told her she is just a little girl and there is no way she could have stopped the men, this was not her fault. She seemed to comprehend what I was telling her. Loudna asked if she could come home with me. Apparently, she askes every team that comes through the clinic that question.

We did not have the medications we needed to treat all of the sexually transmitted diseases she may have been exposed to so we arranged that she would return the following day and we would have medications for her and food. After our dinner the team collected a love offering to give to her for food the next day. Twenty dollars will feed this family for a week and we collected $85.

This evening I noticed the two jars of peanut butter I had placed by the trash pile yesterday were gone. I can only assume the boy who was there watching us returned and got the peanut butter. I am so blessed to not have to scavange through trash piles and hope someone hasn't scraped or washed the peanut butter jar clean. We are truly a land of plenty and don't even realize how the rest of the world lives day by day.