ASIL Programs > Career Development > Arthur C. Helton Fellowship > Helton Fellowship Profiles and Reflections > 2008 ASIL Helton Fellows > ASIL Helton Fellowship Reflections

By Benedetta Faedi, 2008 Arthur C. Helton Fellow

My research focused on sexual violence against girls and women perpetrated by armed groups in Haiti and was conducted in association with the Child Protection Unit of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

The Child Protection Unit within the United Nations peacekeeping mission is responsible primarily for the monitoring and reporting of violations affecting children in armed conflict and armed violence situation, the mainstreaming of children’s issues within the peacekeeping mission itself, including the specific training for United Nations personnel, and strengthening capacity building on children’s rights within national institutions. MINUSTAH Child Protection Unit is currently supporting the funding and development of a specific project aimed at providing education to 200 children as well as professional training for 50 children who have been victims of sexual abuse.MINUSTAH Child Protection Unit also supervises a project aimed at providing education to girls currently in custody in the female prison of Port-au-Prince.

My original goal was to investigate the incentives and rationale for Haitian victims of rape and sexual abuse to join and become active in armed groups. Ultimately, my analysis aimed at envisaging potential strategies and effective measures that international legal institutions could implement to increase women’s involvement in the reconciliation of the community as well as in official conflict resolution settings in Haiti.

Among the many challenges I faced in conducting my research was the fact that records of rape cases and victims are kept only sporadically by organizations of the Haitian civil society, and, to date, no national aggregate database regarding sexual assault is available. Consequently, I was not able to adopt a random sampling methodology for my study. Moreover, due to the widespread insecurity in the metropolitan areas, I did not have access to slum communities, and I could only organize most of my meetings with informants in MINUSTAH and other international or national institutions’ offices, or public places located within the safe areas of the cities.

I had a very interesting and enriching experience conducting my fieldwork, which strongly confirmed my intention to work for a public interest organization and possibly combining a public service occupation with relevant research activities. I will share my experience and present my findings in international conferences as well as in seminars organized at my university to update the wider community about the Haitian reality and the direction for future research. Hopefully, I will also refine my findings and contribute to a law journal article. Finally, I will share the outcome of the project with representatives of Haitian institutions as well as international organizations and NGOs operating in the country for the purpose of designing future preventive measures and effective programs aimed at protecting women from sexual violence in Haiti.

After having spent most of the summer conducting interviews and analyzing several projects carried out by civil society organizations in the country, I was mostly impressed by the impact that the project promoted and supervised by MINUSTAH Child Protection Unit providing education to 200 children and professional training for 50 children who have been victims of sexual abuse actually had on their lives and their hope for a better future.