Examines changes in enslaved women's working lives as planters sought to increase birth rates to replenish declining laboring populations. Establishes that enslaved women in Jamaica experienced a considerable shift in their work responsibilities and their subjection to discipline as slaveholders sought to capitalize on their abilities to reproduce. Enslaved women's reproductive capabilities were pivotal for slavery and the plantation economy's survival once legal supplies from Africa were discontinued.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
20 p., Haiti has concluded its latest election cycle, although it is still finalizing the results of a few legislative seats. The US provided 16 million dollars in election support through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Like many of the previous Haitian elections, the recent process has been riddled with political tensions, violence, allegations of irregularities, and low voter turnout. Other issues include the destabilizing presence of former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier and former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the newly elected government's ability to handle the complex post-earthquake reconstruction process and its relationship with the donor community.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
160 p., Chronicles the history of slavery in Haiti through a recitation of the brutality of the colonisers and the often mundane and trivial ways in which they attempted to dehumanize Haitians. It seeks to illustrate how Haitians' 300-year journey to freedom was illuminated by the African philosophy of Ubuntu, a world view that embodies human solidarity, respect, dignity, justice, liberty, and love. In this philosophy, Africans found an unmatched strength to resist slavery.
Don Fitz explains why quality health care does not have to be based on unending expansion of expensive medical technology. Adapted from the source document.
Health disparity and socio-biological determinants of the poorest quintile and the wealthiest quintile have never been examined for Jamaica. The current study examines health status, illness, age at which the lower and upper classes indicate having illness and particular illnesses, and parameters that explain health status of the upper and lower quintiles in Jamaica as well as the social context of disparities between the two groups.
37 p., Discusses the evolution of housing conditions in urban areas of Latin America and the Caribbean from 1995 to 2006 based on data from household surveys done in 18 countries that comprise 95 percent of the urban population of the region. The results indicate that, on average, the proportion of urban households facing housing shortages is declining. This decline holds for households of all income levels, particularly those in the lower quintiles of the income distribution structure. The estimates made in this study indicate that in 2006 lack of infrastructure affected almost 19 million households.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
10 p., In this submission, prepared for the Universal Periodic Review of Haiti in October 2011, Amnesty International raises concerns that key institutions for implementing reform of the judicial system have still not been established. The state has failed to provide security forces with adequate training and supervision in relation to the use of force. Haitian law does not provide a protective framework for children's rights. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left homeless by the earthquake; and at the end of 2010, nearly a million people were still living in appalling conditions in camps.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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39 p., On 23 May 2010, the Governor-General of Jamaica declared a State of Public Emergency in the parishes of Kingston and St Andrew. Within two days, at least 74 people, including one member of the security forces, had been killed in Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston, and at least 54 others, more than half of them members of the security forces, were injured during police operations. Despite the loss of life and compelling testimonies of grave human rights violations -- including possible extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary arrests -- investigations into the violence have yet to establish the facts and the responsibilities conclusively.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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19 p., Discusses how Haiti's porous land and sea borders remain susceptible to drug trafficking, smuggling and other illegal activities that weaken the rule of law and deprive the state of vital revenue. Post-quake insecurity underscores continued vulnerability to violent crime and political instability. Overcrowded urban slums, plagued by deep poverty, limited economic opportunities and the weakness of government institutions, particularly the Haitian National Police (HNP), breed armed groups and remain a source of broader instability. If the Martelly administration is to guarantee citizen safety successfully, it must remove tainted officers and expand the HNP's institutional and operational capacity across the country by completing a reform that incorporates community policing and violence reduction programs.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
156 p., The reconstruction of Haiti following the earthquake of January 12, 2010 was institutionalized through the creation of the Commission Interimaire pour la reconstruction d'Haiti (Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti, CIRH). More than a year later, the outlook for human rights in Haiti has not changed despite the great promise and strong rhetoric of change. This study seeks to provide evidence for understanding the many facets of extreme poverty in Haiti from a human rights perspective.
