By Summer Walker

This brief summarizes research conducted in December 2022 on gender-based violence (GBV) in Cité Soleil, an impoverished, high-density commune of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. GBV – and sexual violence, in particular – has escalated dramatically in Port-au-Prince in recent years, as gangs have multiplied and taken greater control over communities, local economies and many aspects of daily life. Clashes between armed gangs, including attempts to take over territory, have severely affected security, particularly for women and girls.

A report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), published in October 2022, documented how gangs have used rape and other forms of sexual violence in their quest for power and to instill fear in communities. Meanwhile, a breakdown in public safety across Port-au-Prince is a risk factor associated with increasing levels of GBV and reduces the ability to respond in an effective way.

This brief focuses on research collected in and around Cité Soleil (in the areas of Brooklyn, Sarthe and Village des Rapatriés), using a questionnaire, focus groups and a round table discussion. The study assesses five aspects of vulnerability: safety, legal protection, mental well-being, economic empowerment and education. This research was undertaken under very difficult conditions, and with a high degree of sensitivity to the subject matter and involvement of participants.

This brief offers insight into the current state of GBV in Cité Soleil and identifies potential areas of support for donors and organizations interested in improving the situation. It offers three overarching recommendations, as outlined in the conclusion: building the capacity of institutions that women trust, identifying the ways women organize locally, and developing cross-sector cooperation.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2023. 27p.

By Romain Le Cour Grandmaison; Ana Paula Oliveira and Matt Herbert

Over the course of 2023 and early 2024, security has continued to deteriorate alarmingly in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and in rural areas in the center and south of the country.

The Haitian crisis worsened critically in 2023. UN reports indicate that in 2023, over 4 789 people were murdered, 1 698 injured, and 2 490 kidnapped, with a 2023 homicide rate of 40.9 per 100 000, more than double the 2022 rate. Besides these figures, the nature of the criminal actors has been profoundly transformed, posing a series of challenges to international intervention.

Over the past years, gangs have undergone a radical evolution, going from rather unstructured actors dependent on resources provided by public or private patronage to violent entrepreneurs who have been able to convert their territorial power into governance capabilities. This shift has been fueled by the gangs’ unprecedented access to firearms and the Haitian state’s inability to halt their expansion, professionalization, and propensity to impose their rule over ever-larger territories, as well as by ongoing collusion by elements of the country’s political and economic elites.

In October 2023, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted a resolution authorizing a non-UN multinational security support (MSS) mission to Haiti. After lengthy negotiations, the Kenyan government agreed to lead the deployment to support the Haitian National Police (HNP) in addressing gang violence and re-establishing security. However, the planned operation is currently being challenged in the Kenyan courts. This resolution came after the UNSC agreed on a sanctions regime for Haiti in October 2022 and the subsequent imposition of sanctions on key gang leaders, businessmen, and politicians. The UN sanctions have been supplemented by unilateral designations issued by Canada, the US, and the European Union (EU). Further, UN sanctions were levied on gang leaders in December 2023 as the preparations accelerated for the MSS deployment.

The UN’s current initiatives on Haiti potentially augur a new international approach to how organized crime actors can be tackled both from a security and human rights perspective. Ensuring international tools are effective in mitigating harm caused by gangs in Haiti is therefore vitally important for the people of the country and the international community.

Therefore, the various international tools must be tailored to the rapidly evolving criminal and violence dynamics on the ground and implemented in a strategically coordinated fashion.

This policy report is intended to further efforts to tailor both the MSS mission and the sanctions regime to the current operational challenges in Haiti, support Haitian and international decision-makers in their mission, and provide strategic backing to the country’s civil society.

It begins by detailing the current situation on the ground, including gangs and other violent groups’ operations, governance, and territorial domination. The following section describes the mandate and operations of the two primary international tools: the sanctions regime and the MSS mission. The third section flags key issues that need to be considered by both the sanctions regime and the international force and presents opportunities to align the two more comprehensively to strengthen public security responses and public policy initiatives to resolve the crisis.

Geneva, SWIT: The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2024. 50p.

By Louise Forde

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) establishes minimum standards for the treatment of children in a wide range of areas, including setting out rights to which children in conflict with the law are entitled. Ensuring that children’s rights are respected in the youth justice system has received significant attention at international level, by both the UN and the Council of Europe, and there are now a series of standards and guidelines setting out the rights to which children are entitled (Lynch and Liefaard, 2020). In addition to Articles 37 and 40 of the UNCRC, the following are in place: • the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has produced two General Comments (General Comment No. 24 has recently replaced General Comment No. 10) on how children’s UNCRC rights should be interpreted and applied in practice • the Beijing Rules, the Havana Rules and the Riyadh Guidelines provide further guidance on the implementation of children’s rights in the administration of youth justice, in situations where children are deprived of their liberty, and in relation to the prevention of offending by children • the Council of Europe has developed standards and guidelines on child-friendly justice and on the implementation of sanctions and measures in the youth justice system • the European Convention on Human Rights incorporates a number of rights which are relevant to children in contact with the justice system. The United Kingdom has signed and ratified the UNCRC, and thus, under Article 4 of the UNCRC, it has a legal obligation to take ‘all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures’ to implement children’s rights under the Convention. While Convention rights are not directly applicable in national law unless they are incorporated (see further Kilkelly, Lundy and Byrne, 2021; Lundy, Kilkelly and Byrne, 2013), in signing and ratifying the UNCRC, States Parties undertake binding legal obligations under international law. Furthermore, states’ progress in implementing the UNCRC is subject to regular review by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. However, ensuring compliance with the international standards is often not the core focus for states in designing and developing their youth justice systems. A range of other concerns, such as the protection of victims and society, ensuring accountability for wrongdoing, the prevention of further offending, and sometimes, a recognition that there may be a need to address the underlying causes of offending through a focus on children’s needs, may take priority over considerations relating to children’s rights. Historically, youth justice systems have either been characterised as ‘welfare’-based systems – because they focus on addressing any unmet needs children may have as a means of responding to offending – or ‘justice’-based systems – which focus on ensuring accountability and punishing offenders through traditional criminal justice mechanisms (Smith, D.J., 2005; Smith, R., 2005). These distinct approaches can be said to represent different ‘models’ of youth justice, and have often been presented as being at opposite ends of the spectrum. In practice youth justice systems are much more complex than this welfare/justice dichotomy indicates (Case and Haines, 2018; see further Phoenix, 2016; Muncie, 2008), and tend to mix a range of priorities including ‘welfare; justice; informalism; rights; responsibilities; restoration; prevention; remoralisation and retribution/punishment’ (Goldson and Muncie, 2006: 91). Equally, debates about the appropriate approach to adopt to youth justice can become policitised, and these political considerations can overshadow the search for a principled and coherent approach to responding to children in conflict with the law (Case and Hampson, 2019). The way that these priorities are balanced within a particular youth justice system can give rise to very different results; this has resulted, for example, in very different priorities being evident in each of the youth justice systems across the four jurisdictions of the United Kingdom (Muncie, 2011). Given the complexity of these systems, and the range of ideological, practical and political priorities which are evident, the question becomes which of these models of youth justice is best suited to ensuring that a state is also fulfilling its obligations to respect and ensure children’s rights as set out under the UNCRC? This Academic Insights paper discusses whether the international standards set out a preference for a ‘welfare’ or ‘justice’ approach to youth justice, and considers the elements which are necessary for states that are seeking to ensure that their approach to responding to children in conflict with the law meets with their international legal obligations as States Parties to the UNCRC (see further Forde, 2021). The paper will begin by considering what the international standards say about the approach to youth justice which should be preferred, suggesting five criteria for child rightscompliant youth justice systems. It will conclude by considering some of the challenges and opportunities for developing a youth justice system which respects and realises children’s rights.

Academic Insights 2022/05 . Manchester, UK: Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation, 2022. 16p.

By Washington Office of Latin America

A sk someone to describe a “gang member” and the response will be almost immediate. Most people, whether they have ever encountered an actual gang member or not, will describe a gun-toting, tattooed criminal. Ask someone to explain what a “Central American youth gang” is and the respondent is likely to paint an image of a dangerous network of criminal gangs, based in Central America and spreading their tentacles from there into the United States and other countries. Fueled by sometimes one-sided media coverage, these terms carry with them a strong set of prejudices and assumptions. The reality is far more complex. Gangs and gang members are very serious threats to public security in some communities both in Central America and in the United States. But the character and the origins of Central American youth gangs, and the problem of youth gang violence, are not simple to understand or address. They have both local and transnational aspects and are a social as well as a law enforcement issue. In Central America, youth gangs have existed since at least the 1960s, although their character changed significantly in the 1990s. To understand youth gangs in Central American immigrant communities in the United States, one must recognize that youth gangs in the U.S. can be traced back as far as the 1780s,

Washington, DC: WOLA, 2006. 32p.