MSF reports sexual violence in Haiti’s capital has tripled since 2021, with armed groups using brutal assaults as a tool of terror against women and girls.
GENEVA: Sexual violence is being used systematically to terrorise the population of Haiti’s capital, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned.
The charity said sexual and gender-based violence has surged in Port-au-Prince since 2021. Its report is based on a decade of data and testimonies from its Pran Men’m clinic.
MSF said the clinic has “borne witness to the impact of Haiti’s descent into violence”. Nearly 17,000 survivors of sexual violence were treated there over the past ten years.
Of those survivors, 98% were women and girls. This includes 2,300 cases in just the first nine months of 2025.
The number of admissions has almost tripled from an average of 95 per month in 2021 to more than 250 in 2025. MSF’s head of mission in Haiti, Diana Manilla Arroyo, highlighted this surge.
The charity also reported a “shocking increase in the brutality of the violence”. Since 2022, 57% of survivors reported being assaulted by members of armed groups.
Over 100 patients reported being assaulted by 10 or more perpetrators at a time. One 53-year-old survivor described a horrific attack in the report.
“They beat me and broke my teeth,” she said. “Three young men who could have been my children … After raping me, they raped my daughter … and beat my husband.”
Nearly one-fifth of survivors treated at the clinic had suffered multiple instances of sexual violence. MSF warned of persistent shortcomings in survivors’ access to care.
Barriers like financial difficulties and insecurity prevent swift access to services. This can have dire medical consequences.
Only a third of survivors since 2022 arrived at the clinic within three days of their assault. Beyond this window, it is no longer possible to prevent HIV transmission.
MSF called for more funding and the “unequivocal recognition of the widespread nature of sexual violence”. It said armed groups deliberately use it as a tool to control and subjugate women and girls.
