HAITI IS A DRAMATIC COUNTRY in its terrain, history, and culture. In
comparison with other countries in the Caribbean, Haiti is described in
superlatives: it is the most rural in its settlement pattern, the
poorest, and the most densely populated. It is also the only country in
the region that was born of a successful slave rebellion, and it is the
first modern black republic.
Many observers have described Haitian society as stagnant, but in
recent years, changes have begun. By the 1980s, the population of Haiti
surpassed 5 million. Although the country continued to be overwhelmingly
rural, urbanization was accelerating as the impact of soil erosion and
land fragmentation on agricultural productivity forced increasing
numbers of peasants to migrate to Port-au-Prince and even overseas. The
population of Port-au-Prince was expected to reach 1 million by the end
of the 1980s. Haiti's peasants had traditionally relied on the extended
family and cooperative labor as a means for taking care of each other,
but by the late 1980s, this aspect of the culture had disintegrated.
Deteriorating economic conditions were forcing the poor to find new ways
to eke out a living from the land, or to survive in urban slums. An
unstable, but politically significant, black middle class had emerged
between the traditional, mainly mulatto, elite and the peasantry.
Migration and the penetration of foreign missions and nongovernmental
organizations to the more remote parts of Haiti created new kinds of
relationships with the outside world. The transportation and the
communications systems had been greatly improved, and Creole-language
radio brought news of domestic and international affairs to the
country's isolated villages.
The weight of the past bore heavily on the daily lives of all
Haitians in the 1980s. The country's legacy of slavery and French
colonization had left a lasting imprint on the culture. In the past,
members of the upper class cherished Franco-Haitian culture because the
French language and manners separated them from the masses whom they
wished to rule. At the same time, former slaves created a peasant
culture, but always in the shadow of their urban superiors. Haiti's dual
cultural heritage resulted in negative attitudes toward Haitian peasant
life, particularly toward the Creole language, traditional marriages,
and voodoo, the folk religion. The recent emergence of a middle class
has only exacerbated the debate over what should be considered
"true" Haiti.
Haiti - Population
The estimated population of Haiti in 1989 was 6.1 million, with an
average population density of 182 people per square kilometer. Some 75
percent of the population lived in rural areas, while only 25 percent
remained in urban areas; this was one of the lowest urban-to-rural
population ratios in Latin America and the Caribbean. The estimated
annual population growth rate between 1971 and 1982 was 1.4 percent. The
crude mortality rate in 1982 was estimated to be 16.5 percent, with a
crude birth rate of 36 percent. A profile of the population reveals that the
majority of Haitians are young.
Haiti has conducted only a few censuses throughout its history. A
survey taken during 1918 and 1919 indicated that there were about 1.9
million people in the country. The first formal census, taken in 1950,
showed that the population had reached 3.1 million. The second census,
in 1971, indicated a population of 4.2 million. Critics have argued that
these censuses, along with one taken in 1982 (the final results of which
were still unavailable as of 1989), were deficient and that they
seriously undercounted the population.
Urban areas, particularly Port-au-Prince, grew significantly in the
1970s and the 1980s. The annual population growth rate of metropolitan
Port-au-Prince was estimated to be 3.5 percent between 1971 and 1982,
substantially above the 1.4 percent national rate for that period. The
growth rate for other urban areas was estimated at 2.4 percent.
Metropolitan Port-au-Prince, which includes the capital and the suburbs
of Delmas and Carrefour, was by far the largest urban area, in 1982,
with a population of 763,188, or about 61 percent of the total urban
population. The population of the second largest city, CapHa�tien , was
estimated to be 64,400 in 1982. The next two largest towns, Gona�ves
and Les Cayes, had estimated populations of slightly more than 34,000.
Six other towns had populations greater than 10,000.
The rural population, which grew about 1 percent a year between 1971
and 1982, was estimated to be 3.8 million in 1982, 3.4 million in 1971,
and 2.7 million in 1950. In 1982 there were about 464 people per square
kilometer in rural areas, one of the highest population densities in the
Western Hemisphere.
<>Migration
The population growth rate in Haiti's rural areas has been lower than
the rate for urban areas, even though fertility rates are higher in
rural areas. The main reason for this disparity is outmigration. People
in rural areas have moved to cities, or they have emigrated to other
countries, mostly the United States and the Dominican Republic. An
estimated 1 million people left Haiti between 1957 and 1982.
Many of the emigrants in the 1950s and the 1960s were urban
middle-class and upper-class opponents of the government of Fran�ois
Duvalier (1957-71). Throughout the 1970s, however, an increasing number
of rural and lower-class urban Haitians emigrated, too. In the 1980s, as
many as 500,000 Haitians were living in the United States; there were
large communities in New York, Miami, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
Thousands of Haitians also illegally emigrated to the United States
through nonimmigrant visas, while others entered the United States
without any documentation at all.
The first reports of Haitians' arriving in the United States, by boat
and without documentation, occurred in 1972. Between 1972 and 1981, the
United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) reported more
than 55,000 Haitian "boat people" arrived in Florida. The INS
estimated that because as many as half of the arrivals escaped
detection, the actual number of boat people may have exceeded 100,000.
An unknown number of Haitians are reported to have died during their
attempts to reach the United States by sea.
Though poorer than earlier immigrants, the boat people were often
literate and skilled, and all had families who could afford the price of
a passage to Florida. About 85 percent of these boat people settled in
Miami.
In September 1981, the United States entered an agreement with Haiti
to interdict Haitian boats and return prospective immigrants to Haiti.
Under the agreement, 3,107 Haitians had been returned by 1984.
Nevertheless, clandestine departures by boat continued throughout the
1980s. The Bahamas was another destination of Haitian emigrants; an
estimated 50,000 arrived there by boat during the 1980s. The Bahamas had
welcomed Haitian immigrants during the 1960s, but in the late 1970s, it
reversed its position, leading to increased emigration to Florida.
Since the early twentieth century, the Dominican Republic has
received both temporary and permanent Haitian migrants. The
International Labour Office estimated that between 200,000 and 500,000
Haitians resided in the Dominican Republic in 1983. About 85,000 of them
lived on cane plantations. In the early 1980s, about 80 to 90 percent of
the cane cutters in the Dominican Republic were reported to be Haitians.
Through an accord with the Haitian government, the Dominican Republic
imported Haitian workers to cut cane. In 1983 the Dominican Republic
hired an estimated 19,000 workers. Evidence presented to the United
Nations (UN) Working Group on Slavery revealed that the Dominican
Republic paid wages that were miserably low and that working and living
conditions failed to meet standards set by the two governments.
According to some reports, Haitian cane cutters were unable to leave
their workplaces, and they were prevented from learning about the terms
of the contracts under which they had been hired.
Emigration helped moderate Haiti's population growth. Furthermore,
annual remittances from abroad, estimated to be as high as US$100
million, supported thousands of poor families and provided an important
infusion of capital into the Haitian economy. At the same time,
emigration resulted in a heavy loss of professional and skilled
personnel from urban and rural areas.
Haiti.
A number of studies show that Haiti's fertility rate declined
significantly from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. As was true in
other countries, there appeared to be a correlation among declining
fertility rates, urban residence, and literacy. The 1977 Haitian
Fertility Survey found that between 1962 and 1977, the fertility rate of
urban literate women declined by 33 percent. In contrast, the rate for
rural illiterate women declined by only 7 percent during the same
period. Moreover, the fertility rate of literate rural women declined by
27 percent, while that of illiterate urban women declined by 15 percent.
Haitian women interviewed in the 1977 survey indicated that they
desired between three and four children, but at that time, the average
woman had more than five children.
Expressed desire for family planning services exceeded available
programs, and many women lacked access to modern contraceptives and
birth-control information. The survey found that, despite the widespread
desire for fewer children, only 7 percent of women of childbearing age
were using modern contraceptives. Haitian men traditionally shunned the
use of condoms. The fertility survey reported a condom-use rate of only
1 percent. The absence of more recent surveys made it impossible to
determine whether or not condom use had risen in response to the high
incidence of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in Haiti.
Haiti.
As a result of the extinction of the indigenous population by the
beginning of the seventeenth century, the population of preindependence
Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) was entirely the product of the
French colonists' slaveholding policies and practices. The major
planters and government officials who constituted the ruling class
carefully controlled every segment of the population, especially the
majority of African slaves and their descendants. Society was structured
for the rapid production of wealth for the planters and their investors
in France.
In the colonial period, the French imposed a three-tiered social
structure. At the top of the social and political ladder was the white
elite (grands blancs). At the bottom of the social structure
were the black slaves (noirs), most of whom had been
transported from Africa. Between the white elite and the slaves arose a
third group, the freedmen (affranchis), most of whom were
descended from unions of slaveowners and slaves. Some mulatto freedmen
inherited land, became relatively wealthy, and owned slaves (perhaps as
many as one-fourth of all slaves in Saint-Domingue belonged to affranchis).
Nevertheless, racial codes kept the affranchis socially and
politically inferior to the whites. Also between the white elite and the
slaves were the poor whites (petits blancs), who considered
themselves socially superior to the mulattoes, even if they sometimes
found themselves economically inferior to them. Of a population of
519,000 in 1791, 87 percent were slaves, 8 percent were whites, and 5
percent were freedmen. Because of harsh living and working conditions,
many slaves died, and new slaves were imported. Thus, at the time of the
slave rebellion of 1791, most slaves had been born in Africa rather than
in Saint-Domingue.
The Haitian Revolution changed the country's social structure. The
colonial ruling class, and most of the white population, was eliminated,
and the plantation system was largely destroyed. The earliest black and
mulatto leaders attempted to restore a plantation system that relied on
an essentially free labor force, through strict military control, but the system collapsed during the tenure of
Alexandre P�tion (1806-18). The Haitian Revolution broke up plantations
and distributed land among the former slaves. Through this process, the
new Haitian upper class lost control over agricultural land and labor,
which had been the economic basis of colonial control. To maintain their
superior economic and social position, the new Haitian upper class
turned away from agricultural pursuits in favor of more urban-based
activities, particularly government.
The nineteenth-century Haitian ruling class consisted of two groups,
the urban elite and the military leadership. The urban elite were
primarily a closed group of educated, comparatively wealthy, and
French-speaking mulattoes. Birth determined an individual's social
position, and shared values and intermarriage reinforced class
solidarity. The military, however, was a means of advancement for
disadvantaged black Haitians. In a shifting, and often uneasy, alliance
with the military, the urban elite ruled the country and kept the
peasantry isolated from national affairs. The urban elite promoted
French norms and models as a means of separating themselves from the
peasantry. Thus, French language and manners, orthodox Roman
Catholicism, and light skin were important criteria of high social
position. The elite disdained manual labor, industry, and commerce in
favor of the more genteel professions, such as law and medicine.
A small, but politically important, middle class emerged during the
twentieth century. Although social mobility increased slightly, the
traditional elite retained their economic preeminence, despite
countervailing efforts by Fran�ois Duvalier. For the most part, the
peasantry continued to be excluded from national affairs, but by the
1980s, this isolation had decreased significantly. Still, economic
hardship in rural areas caused many cultivators to migrate to the cities
in search of a higher standard of living, thereby increasing the size of
the urban lower class.
<>The Upper Class
In the 1980s, Haiti's upper class constituted as little as 2 percent
of the total population, but it controlled about 44 percent of the
national income. The upper class included not only the traditional
elite, which had not controlled the government for more than thirty
years, but also individuals who had become wealthy and powerful through
their connections with the governments of Fran�ois Duvalier and his
son, Jean-Claude Duvalier. Increased access to education helped carry
some individuals into the ranks of the upper class. Others were able to
move upward because of wealth they accrued in industry or export-import
businesses.
The traditional elite held key positions in trade, industry, real
estate, and the professions, and they were identified by membership in
"good families," which claimed several generations of
recognized legal status and name. Being a member of the elite also
required a thorough knowledge of cultural refinements, particularly the
customs of the French. Light skin and straight hair continued to be
important characteristics of this group. French surnames were common
among the mulatto elite, but increased immigration from Europe and the
Middle East in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries had
introduced German, English, Danish, and Arabic names to the roster.
The only group described as an ethnic minority in Haiti was the
"Arabs," people descended from Syrian, Lebanese, and
Palestinian traders who began to arrive in Haiti and elsewhere in the
Caribbean in the late nineteenth century. From their beginnings, as
itinerant peddlers of fabrics and other dry goods, the Arabs moved into
the export-import sector, engendering the hostility of Haitians and
foreign rivals. Nevertheless, the Arabs remained. Many adopted French
and Creole as their preferred languages, took Haitian citizenship, and
integrated themselves into the upper and the middle classes. Formerly
spurned by elite mulatto families and excluded from the best clubs, the
Arabs had begun to intermarry with elite Haitians and to take part in
all aspects of upper-class life, including entry into the professions
and industry.
Haiti - The Middle Class
The middle class was essentially nonexistent during the nineteenth
century. But at about the time of the United States occupation
(1915-34), it became more defined. The creation of a
professional military and the expansion of government services fostered
the development of Haiti's middle class. Educational reform in the
1920s, an upsurge in black consciousness, and the wave of economic
prosperity after World War II also contributed to the strengthening of
the class. In the late 1980s, the middle class probably made up less
than 5 percent of the total population, but it was growing, and it was
becoming more politically powerful.
The mulatto elite dominated governments in the 1930s and the early
1940s and thwarted the political aspirations of the black middle class.
President Dumarsais Estim� (1946-50) came to power with the aim of
strengthening the middle class. The Duvalier government also claimed the
allegiance of the black middle class, at least through the 1970s. During
the Duvalier period, many in the middle class owed their economic
security to the government. A number of individuals from this class,
however, benefited from institutionalized corruption.
Some members of the middle class had acquired political power by the
1980s, but most continued to be culturally ambivalent and insecure.
Class solidarity, identity, and traditions were all weak. The criteria
for membership in the middle class included a nonmanual occupation, a
moderate income, literacy, and a mastery of French. Middle-class
Haitians sought upward mobility for themselves and their children, and
they perceived education and urban residence as two essential keys to
achieving higher status. Although they attempted to emulate the
lifestyle of the upper class, middle-class Haitians resented the social
preeminence and the color prejudice of the elite. Conflicts between the
FrancoHaitian and the Afro-Haitian cultural traditions were most common
among the middle class.
Haiti - Peasants
Haiti's peasantry constituted approximately 75 percent of the total
population. Unlike peasants in much of Latin America, most of Haiti's
peasants had owned land since the early nineteenth century. Land was the
most valuable rural commodity, and peasant families went to great
lengths to retain it and to increase their holdings.
Peasants in general had control over their landholdings, but many
lacked clear title to their plots. Haiti has never conducted a cadastral
survey, but it is likely that many families have passed on land over
generations without updating land titles. Division of land equally among
male and female heirs resulted in farm plots that became too small to
warrant the high costs of a surveyor. Heirs occasionally surveyed land
before taking possession of it, but more frequently, heirs divided plots
among themselves in the presence of community witnesses and often a
notary. Some inherited land was not divided, but was used in common, for
example, for pasture, or it was worked by heirs in rotation. Families
commonly sold land to raise cash for such contingencies as funerals or
to pay the expenses of emigration. Purchasers often held land with a
notarized paper, rather than a formal deed.
There were strata within the peasantry based on the amount of
property owned. Many peasants worked land as sharecroppers or tenants,
and some hoped eventually to inherit the plots they worked. Some tenant
farmers owned and cultivated plots in addition to the land they worked
for others. The number of entirely landless peasants who relied solely
on wage labor was probably quite small. Agricultural wages were so low
that peasants deprived of land were likely to migrate to urban areas in
search of higher incomes. Wealthier peasants maintained their economic
positions through the control of capital and influence in local
politics.
Peasants maintained a strong, positive identity as Haitians and as
cultivators of the land, but they exhibited a weak sense of class
consciousness. Rivalries among peasants were more common than unified
resentment toward the upper class.
Cooperation among peasants diminished during the twentieth century.
Farms run by nuclear families and exchanges among extended families had
formed the basis of the agrarian system. Until the middle of the
twentieth century, collective labor teams, called kounbit, and
larger labor-exchange groups were quite common. These groups were formed
to carry out specific tasks on an individual's land; the owner provided
music and a festive meal. After the 1940s, smaller groups, called eskouad,began
to replace the kounbit. The eskouad carried out tasks
on a strictly reciprocal basis or sold their collective labor to other
peasants.
Although Haitian peasant villages generally lacked a sense of
community and civic-mindedness, some civic-action groups had emerged
over the years. After the 1960s, wealthy peasants led rural community
councils, which were supervised by the government. These councils often
served more to control the flow of development resources into an area
than to represent the local population. In the 1980s, a countervailing
movement of small peasant groups (groupman) emerged with
support from the Roman Catholic Church, principally in the Plateau
Central. The groupman discussed common interests and undertook
some cooperative activities. Both the Duvalier governments and the
succeeding National Council of Government (Conseil National de
Gouvernement--CNG), headed by Lieutenant General Henri Namphy, took
steps to curb the activities of these peasant groups.
The first generation of Haitian peasants pursued selfsufficiency ,
freedom, and peace. The necessity of devoting at least some share of
their limited hectarage to the production of cash crops, however,
hindered the peasants' ability to achieve self-sufficiency in the
cultivation of domestic staples. Although they acquired a degree of
freedom, they also found themselves isolated from the rest of the nation
and the world. In the second half of the twentieth century, the Haitian
peasantry gradually became much less isolated. Several factors
accelerated the peasants' involvement with the outside world in the
1970s and the 1980s. Road projects improved the transportation system,
and foreign religious missions and private development agencies
penetrated the rural areas. These organizations brought new resources
and provided an institutional link to the outside world. Many people
from almost every community had migrated to Port-au-Prince or overseas,
and they sent money home to rural areas. Cassette tapes enabled
illiterate people who had traveled far from home to communicate with
their families. Creole, which became widely used on radio, brought news
of Haiti and the world to remote villages. And in 1986, media coverage
of the fall of the Duvalier regime put rural Haitians in touch with the
political affairs of the nation.
Haiti - Urban Lower Class
The urban lower class, which made up about 15 percent of the total
population in the early 1980s, was concentrated in Port-au- Prince and
the major coastal towns. Increased migration from rural areas
contributed greatly to the growth of this class. Industrial growth was
insufficient, however, to absorb the labor surplus produced by the
burgeoning urbanization; unemployment and underemployment were severe in
urban areas. The urban lower class was socially heterogeneous, and it
had little class consciousness. One outstanding characteristic of this
group was its commitment to education. Despite economic hardships, urban
lower-class parents made a real effort to keep their children in school
throughout the primary curriculum. Through education and political
participation, some members of the lower class achieved mobility into
the middle class.
The poorest strata of the urban lower class lived under Haiti's worst
sanitary and health conditions. According to the World Bank, one-third
of the population of Portau -Prince lived in densities of more than
1,000 people per hectare in 1976. The poorest families consumed as few
as seven liters of water per person, per day, for cooking, drinking, and
cleaning, and they spent about one-fifth of their income to obtain it.
For many of these families, income and living conditions worsened in the
1980s.
Haiti - GENDER ROLES AND FAMILY LIFE
In rural areas, men and women played complementary roles. Men were
primarily responsible for farming and, especially, for heavy work, such
as tilling. Women, however, often assisted with tasks such as weeding
and harvesting. Women were responsible for selling agricultural produce.
In general, Haitian women participated in the labor force to a much
greater extent than did women in other Latin American countries. Haiti's
culture valued women's economic contribution to the farm in that all
income generated through agricultural production belonged to both
husband and wife. Many women also acquired sufficient capital to become
full-time market traders, and they were thus economically independent.
The income that they earned from nonfarm business activities was
recognized as their own; they were not required to share it with their
husbands.
The most common marital relationship among peasants and the urban
lower class was known as plasaj. The government did not
recognize plasaj as legitimate marriage, but in lowerclass
communities, these relationships were considered normal and proper. The
husband and wife often made an explicit agreement about their economic
relationship at the beginning of a marriage. These agreements usually
required the husband to cultivate at least one plot of land for the wife
and to provide her with a house. Women performed most household tasks,
though men often did heavy chores, such as gathering firewood.
For the most part, lower-class men and women had civil and religious
marriages for reasons of prestige rather than to legitimize marital
relations. Because weddings were expensive, many couples waited several
years before having them. In the 1960s, this pattern began to change
among Protestant families who belonged to churches that strongly
encouraged legal marriage and provided affordable weddings. It was not unusual for peasants to have more than one
marital relationship. Some entered into polygamous marriages, which only
a few men could afford.
Legal marriages were neither more stable nor more productive than plasaj
relationships. Also, legal marriages were not necessarily monogamous. In
fact, legally married men were often more economically stable than men
in plasaj relationships, so it was easier for them to separate
from their wives or to enter into extramarital relationships.
Men and women both valued children and both contributed to child
care, but women generally bore most of the burden. Parents were proud of
their children, regardless of whether they were born in a marital
relationship or as "outside children." Parents took pains to
ensure that all of their children received equal inheritances.
Family structure in rural Haiti has changed since the nineteenth
century. Until the early part of the twentieth century, the lakou,
an extended family, usually defined along male lines, was the principal
family form. The term lakou referred not only to the family
members, but to the cluster of houses in which they lived. Members of a lakou
worked cooperatively, and they provided each other with financial and
other kinds of support. Land ownership was not cooperative, however, and
successive generations of heirs inherited individual plots. Under the
pressure of population growth and the increasing fragmentation of
landholdings, the lakou system disintegrated. By the
mid-twentieth century, the nuclear family had become the norm among
peasants. The lakou survived as a typical place of residence,
but the cooperative labor and the social security provided by these
extended families disappeared. Haitian peasants still relied on their
kin for support, but the extended family sometimes became an arena for
land disputes as much as a mechanism for cooperation.
Family life among the traditional elite was substantially different
from that of the lower class. Civil and religious marriages were the
norm, and the "best" families could trace legally married
ancestors to the nineteenth century. Because of the importance of
intermarriage, mulatto elite families were often interrelated. Marital
relationships have changed somewhat since the mid-twentieth century.
Divorce, once rare, has become acceptable. Elite wives, once exclusively
homemakers surrounded by servants, entered the labor force in increasing
numbers in the 1970s and the 1980s. The legal rights of married women,
including rights to property, were expanded through legislation in the
1980s. In addition, the elite had a broader choice of partners as
economic change and immigration changed the composition of that group.
Haiti - LANGUAGE
French and Creole
Two languages were spoken in Haiti: Creole and French. The social
relationship between these languages was complex. Nine of every ten
Haitians spoke only Creole, which was the everyday language for the
entire population. About one in ten also spoke French. And only about
one in twenty was fluent in both French and Creole. Thus, Haiti was
neither a francophone country nor a bilingual one. Rather, two separate
speech communities existed: the monolingual majority and the bilingual
elite.
All classes valued verbal facility. Public speaking played an
important role in political life; the style of the speech was often more
important than the content. Repartee enlivened the daily parlance of
both the monolingual peasant and the sophisticated bilingual urbanite.
Small groups gathered regularly in Port-au-Prince to listen to
storytellers. Attitudes toward French and Creole helped to define the
Haitians' cultural dilemma.
Language usually complicated interactions between members of the
elite and the masses. Haitians of all classes took pride in Creole as a
means of expression and as the national tongue. Nevertheless, many
monolingual and bilingual Haitians regarded Creole as a nonlanguage,
claiming that "it has no rules." Thus, the majority of the
population did not value their native language and built a mystique
around French. At the same time, almost every bilingual Haitian had
ambivalent feelings about using French and did so uncomfortably. In
Creole the phrase "to speak French" means "to be a
hypocrite."
Fluency in French served as an even more important criterion than
skin color for membership in the Haitian elite. The use of French in
public life excluded the Creole-speaking majority from politics,
government, and intellectual life. Bilingual families used French
primarily for formal occasions. Because Creole was the language of
informal gatherings, it was filled with slang and was used for telling
jokes. Haitian French lacked these informal qualities. Monolingual
Creole speakers avoided formal situations where their inability to
communicate in French would be a disadvantage or an embarrassment. In an
attempt to be accepted in formal or governmental circles, some
monolingual Creole speakers used French-sounding phrases in their Creole
speech, but these imitations were ultimately of little or no use.
Middle-class bilinguals in Port-au-Prince suffered the greatest
disadvantage because they frequently encountered situations in which the
use of French would be appropriate, but their imperfect mastery of the
language tended to betray their lower-class origins. It was in the
middle class that the language issue was most pressing. The use of
French as a class marker made middle-class Haitians more rigid in their
use of French on formal occasions than Haitians who were solidly upper
class.
The origins of Creole are still debated. Some scholars believe that
it arose from a pidgin that developed between French colonists and
African slaves in the colonies. Others believe that Creole came to the
colony of Saint-Domingue as a full-fledged language, having arisen from
the French maritime-trade dialect. Whatever its origins, Creole is
linguistically a separate language and not just a corrupted French
dialect. Although the majority of Creole words have French origins,
Creole's grammar is not similar to that of French, and the two languages
are not mutually comprehensible.
There are regional and class variations in Creole. Regional
variations include lexical items and sound shifts, but the grammatical
structure is consistent throughout the country. Bilingual speakers tend
to use French phonemes in their Creole speech. The tendency to use
French sounds became common in the Port-au-Prince variant of Creole. By
the 1980s, the Port-au- Prince variant was becoming perceived as the
standard form of the language.
The use of French and Creole during the colonial and the independence
periods set speech patterns for the next century. During the colonial
period, it was mostly whites and educated mulatto freedmen who spoke
French. When the slaves gained their freedom and the plantation system
disintegrated, the greatest barriers among the various classes of people
of color collapsed. French language became a vital distinction between
these who had been emancipated before the revolution (the anciens
libres) and those who achieved freedom through the revolution, and
it ensured the superior status of the anciens libres. French
became the language not only of government and commerce, but also of
culture and refinement. Even the most nationalist Haitians of the
nineteenth century placed little value on Creole.
Attitudes toward Creole began to change during the twentieth century,
however, especially during the United States occupation. The occupation
forced Haitian intellectuals to confront their non-European heritage. A
growing black consciousness and intensifying nationalism led many
Haitians to consider Creole as the "authentic" language of the
country. The first attempt at a Creole text appeared in 1925, and the
first Creole newspaper was published in 1943.
Beginning in the 1950s, a movement to give Creole official status
evolved slowly. The constitution of 1957 reaffirmed French as the
official language, but it permitted the use of Creole in certain public
functions. In 1969 a law was passed giving Creole limited legal status;
the language could be used in the legislature, the courts, and clubs,
but not in accredited educational institutions. In 1979, however, a
decree permitted Creole as the language of instruction in the classroom.
The constitution of 1983 declared that both Creole and French were the
national languages but specified that French would be the official
language. The suppressed 1987 Constitution (which was partially
reinstated in 1989) gave official status to Creole.
<>Changes in Language
Use
The use of Creole, even in formal settings, increased throughout the
1970s and the 1980s. Conversations at elite dinner tables, once held
rigidly in French, switched fluidly between French and Creole, even
within the same sentence. Radio and television stations increased
broadcasts in Creole as advertisers learned the utility of reaching the
vast majority of their market. Radio provided widespread access to news,
which helped to break down the isolation of the peasantry and to
galvanize the population during the crisis that led to the fall of the
Duvalier regime. In 1986 it became obvious that important changes had
taken place in Haiti, as people who had been in exile for years began to
return home to run for the presidency. Many arrived at the
Port-au-Prince airport with French speeches in hand but found themselves
confronted by journalists who insisted on speaking Creole.
The emergence of English as an important language of business
affected attitudes toward French. Growing trade with the United States
and the development of assembly industries funded by investors from the
United States led to greater use of English in commercial settings.
English also became more important as Haitians migrated to the United
States and as many members of the elite sent their children to North
American educational institutions.
English cut across class lines. Hundreds of French-speaking elite
families spent years of exile in the United States during the Duvalier
period, and they returned to Haiti fluent in English. Many Creole
speakers who went to the United States also returned to Haiti as fluent
English speakers. Haitian migration to the United States and trade with
North America also resulted in the introduction of English words into
the Creole lexicon. For many monolinguals, learning English appeared
more practical than learning French, and English posed fewer
psychological and social obstacles. The availability and the popularity
of Englishlanguage television programs on Haiti's private cable service
helped familiarize Haitians with the language. Spanish also had become
fairly wide in Haiti, largely because of migration to the Dominican
Republic.
Haiti - Creole, Literacy, and Education
Conflicting political interests have caused Haiti's national language
policy to be inconsistent. Even governments that claimed to represent
the masses hesitated to give Creole and French equal legal status. It
was only in the late 1970s that the government approved the use of
Creole in education. In the early 1980s, there was still some doubt
about whether Creole would used in primary education.
For almost fifty years, Haitian linguists had debated the spelling
rules for Creole. But in the late 1970s, the National Pedagogic
Institute (Institut P�dagogique Nacional--IPN) developed an orthography
that included elements of the two systems previously in use. The
government gave semiofficial status to the new orthography as part of
the education reform of 1978.
The most controversial aspect of the education reform was the
introduction of Creole as the medium of instruction in primary schools.
In many rural and urban schools, textbooks were in French, but classroom
discussion of these books was in Creole. Nevertheless, French remained
the official language of instruction, and a major goal of most students
was to master written and spoken French.
The education reform program was intended to boost students'
performance through instruction in their native language, but several
groups opposed the use of Creole as the language of instruction.
Bilingual families believed that the use of Creole in the schools was
eroding their linguistic advantage in society, by reducing the
importance of French. In general, the upper class believed that by
offering instruction in Creole, the schools would increase poor people's
access to education; however, many poor people also opposed the reform.
The poor tended to view education more as a means of escaping poverty
than as a means for learning, so many parents were most concerned about
having their children learn French. Private schools often ignored the
curriculum changes called for under the reform. Under pressure from the
public, the government declared that students would begin using French
when they entered the fifth grade. Students entering fifth grade found
themselves unprepared for classroom use of French, however, because
their textbooks in earlier grades had been entirely in Creole. The
problem remained unresolved in the late 1980s.
In the 1960s, the government had established adult literacy programs
in Creole, and the Roman Catholic Church had sponsored similar
nationwide programs in the mid-1980s. According to Haiti's 1982 census,
37 percent of the population over ten years of age was literate; in
rural areas, only 28 percent was literate. In rural areas, the literacy
rate for women was almost as high as it was for men. The census failed
to note, however, the degree of literacy, or the language in which
people were literate.
Monolingual speakers had little access to literature in Creole. The
major Creole publication, the monthly Bon Nouvel, published by
a Roman Catholic group, had a circulation of 20,000 in 1980. A
Protestant group published the New Testament in Creole in 1972. Numerous
booklets about hygiene and agricultural practices appeared in increasing
quantities in the 1970s and the 1980s. Nevertheless, Creole literature
continued to be scarce in the late 1980s. In particular, information in
Creole about politics and current events was in short supply. By the
late 1980s, monolingual speakers regularly used Creole in letters and
personal notes. Community leaders and development workers also used the
language in recording the minutes of their meetings and in project
reports.
Haiti - RELIGION
Roman Catholicism is the official religion of Haiti, but voodoo may
be considered the country's national religion. The majority of Haitians
believe in and practice at least some aspects of voodoo. Most voodooists
believe that their religion can coexist with Catholicism. Most
Protestants, however, strongly oppose voodoo.
Voodoo
Misconceptions about voodoo have given Haiti a reputation for sorcery
and zombies. Popular images of voodoo have ignored the religion's basis
as a domestic cult of family spirits. Adherents of voodoo do not
perceive themselves as members of a separate religion; they consider
themselves Roman Catholics. In fact, the word for voodoo does not even
exist in rural Haiti. The Creole word vodoun refers to a kind
of dance and in some areas to a category of spirits. Roman Catholics who
are active voodooists say that they "serve the spirits," but
they do not consider that practice as something outside of Roman
Catholicism. Haitians also distinguish between the service of family
spirits and the practice of magic and sorcery.
The belief system of voodoo revolves around family spirits (often
called loua or mist�) who are inherited through
maternal and paternal lines. Loua protect their
"children" from misfortune. In return, families must
"feed" the loua through periodic rituals in which
food, drink, and other gifts are offered to the spirits. There are two
kinds of services for the loua. The first is held once a year;
the second is conducted much less frequently, usually only once a
generation. Many poor families, however, wait until they feel a need to
restore their relationship with their spirits before they conduct a
service. Services are usually held at a sanctuary on family land.
In voodoo, there are many loua. Although there is
considerable variation among families and regions, there are generally
two groups of loua, the rada and the petro.
The rada spirits are mostly seen as "sweet" loua,
while the petro are seen as "bitter" because they are
more demanding of their "children." Rada spirits
appear to be of African origin while petro spirits appear to be
of Haitian origin.
Loua are usually anthropomorphic and have distinct
identities. They can be good, evil, capricious, or demanding. Loua
most commonly show their displeasure by making people sick, and so
voodoo is used to diagnose and treat illnesses. Loua are not
nature spirits, and they do not make crops grow or bring rain. The loua
of one family have no claim over members of other families, and they
cannot protect or harm them. Voodooists are therefore not interested in
the loua of other families.
Loua appear to family members in dreams and, more
dramatically, through trances. Many Haitians believe that loua
are capable of temporarily taking over the bodies of their
"children." Men and women enter trances during which they
assume the traits of particular loua. People in a trance feel
giddy and usually remember nothing after they return to a normal state
of consciousness. Voodooists say that the spirit temporarily replaces
the human personality. Possession trances occur usually during rituals
such as services for loua or a vodoun dance in honor
of the loua. When loua appear to entranced people,
they may bring warnings or explanations for the causes of illnesses or
misfortune. Loua often engage the crowd around them through
flirtation, jokes, or accusations.
Ancestors (le m�) rank with the family loua as the
most important spiritual entities in voodoo. Elaborate funeral and
mourning rites reflect the important role of the dead. Ornate tombs
throughout the countryside reveal how much attention Haiti gives to its
dead. Voodooists believe the dead are capable of forcing their survivors
to construct tombs and sell land. In these cases, the dead act like
family loua, which "hold" family members to make them
ill or bring other misfortune. The dead also appear in dreams to provide
their survivors with advice or warnings.
Voodooists also believe there are loua that can be paid to
bring good fortune or protection from evil. And, they believe that souls
can be paid to attack enemies by making them ill.
Folk belief includes zombies and witchcraft. Zombies are either
spirits or people whose souls have been partially withdrawn from their
bodies. Some Haitians resort to bok�, who are specialists in
sorcery and magic. Haiti has several secret societies whose members
practice sorcery.
Voodoo specialists, male houngan and female manbo,
mediate between humans and spirits through divination and trance. They
diagnose illnesses and reveal the origins of other misfortune. They can
also perform rituals to appease spirits or ancestors or to repel magic.
Many voodoo specialists are accomplished herbalists who treat a variety
of illnesses.
Voodoo lacks a fixed theology and an organized hierarchy, unlike
Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Each specialist develops his or her
own reputation for helping people.
Fran�ois Duvalier recruited voodoo specialists to serve as tonton
makouts to help him control all aspects of Haitian life. Duvalier
indicated that he retained power through sorcery, but because voodoo is
essentially a family-based cult, Duvalier failed to politicize the
religion to any great extent.
<>Roman Catholicism
Before the Haitian Revolution, Roman Catholicism in particular and
the church in general played minor roles in colonial life. Plantation
owners feared that religious education for slaves could undermine their
basis for control, and they expelled the education-oriented Jesuits in
1764. Roman Catholicism gained official status in several
postindependence Haitian constitutions, but there was no official Roman
Catholic presence in the country until the signing of a Concordat with
the Vatican in 1860. (The Vatican had previously refused to recognize
the Haitian government.) The Concordat provided for the appointment of
an archbishop in Port-au-Prince, designated dioceses, and established an
annual government subsidy for the church. An amendment to the Concordat
in 1862 assigned the Roman Catholic Church an important role in secular
education.
The small number of priests and members of religious orders initially
ministered mainly to the urban elite. Until the midtwentieth century,
the majority of priests were francophone Europeans, particularly
Bretons, who were culturally distant from their rural parishioners.
Roman Catholic clergy were generally hostile toward voodoo, and they led
two major campaigns against the religion in 1896 and 1941. During these
campaigns, the government outlawed voodoo services, and Catholics
destroyed voodoo religious objects and persecuted practitioners. Roman
Catholic clergy, however, have not been persistently militant in their
opposition to voodoo, and they have had relatively little impact on the
religious practices of the rural and the urban poor. The clergy have
generally directed their energies more toward educating the urban
population than toward eradicating voodoo. In the 1970s and the 1980s,
the use of Creole and drum music became common in Roman Catholic
services. Incorporating folk elements into the liturgy, however, did not
mean that the Roman Catholic Church's attitude toward voodoo had
changed.
Nationalists and others came to resent the Roman Catholic Church
because of its European orientation and its alliance with the mulatto
elite. Fran�ois Duvalier opposed the church more than any other Haitian
president. He expelled the archbishop of Portau -Prince, the Jesuit
order, and numerous priests between 1959 and 1961. In response to these
moves, the Vatican excommunicated Duvalier. When relations with the
church were restored in 1966, Duvalier prevailed. A Haitian archbishop
was named for the first time, and the president gained the right to
nominate bishops.
The mid-1980s marked a profound change in the church's stance on
issues related to peasants and the urban poor. Reflecting this change
was the statement by Pope John Paul II, during a visit to Haiti in 1983,
that "Things must change here". Galvanized by the Vatican's
concern, Roman Catholic clergy and lay workers called for improved human
rights. Lay workers helped develop a peasant-community movement,
especially at a center in the Plateau Central. The Roman Catholic radio
station, Radio Soleil, played a key role in disseminating news about
government actions during the 1985-86 crisis and encouraging opponents
of the Duvalier government. The bishops, particularly in J�r�mie and
Cap-Ha�tien, actively denounced Duvalierist repression and human-rights
violations.
In the aftermath of Jean-Claude Duvalier's departure, the church took
a less active role in Haiti's politics. The church hierarchy strongly
supported the suppressed 1987 Constitution, which granted official
status to Creole and guaranteed basic human rights, including the right
to practice voodoo. The alliance with the lower classes left the
Catholic Church with two unresolved problems in the late 1980s: its
uneasy relationship with voodoo and its relationship to the more radical
elements of the political movement that it had supported.
Haiti - Protestantism
Protestantism has existed in Haiti since the earliest days of the
republic. By the mid-nineteenth century, there were small numbers of
Protestant missions, principally Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian.
Protestant churches, mostly from North America, have sent many foreign
missions to Haiti. Almost half of Haiti's Protestants were Baptists;
Pentecostals were the second largest group. Many other denominations
also were present, including Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, and
Presbyterians. Widespread Protestant proselytization began in the 1950s.
Since the late 1950s, about 20 percent of the population has identified
itself as Protestant. Protestantism has appealed mainly to the middle
and the upper classes, and it played an important role in educational
life.
Protestant churches focused their appeal on the lower classes long
before the Roman Catholics did. Churches and clergy were found even in
the smaller villages. Protestant clergy used Creole rather than French.
Schools and clinics provided much-needed services. Protestant
congregations encouraged baptisms and marriages and performed them free.
For many Haitians, Protestantism represented an opposition to voodoo.
When people converted to Protestantism, they usually did not reject
voodoo, but they often came to view the folk religion as diabolical.
Most Protestant denominations considered all loua, including
family spirits, as demons. Some Haitians converted to Protestantism when
they wanted to reject family spirits that they felt had failed to
protect them. Others chose to become Protestants merely as a way to gain
an alternative form of protection from misfortune.
Fran�ois Duvalier, in his struggle with the Roman Catholic Church,
welcomed Protestant missionaries, especially from the United States.
Dependent on the government for their presence in Haiti, and competing
with each other as well as with the Roman Catholics, Protestant missions
generally accepted the policies of the Duvalier regimes. Numerous
Protestant leaders did, however, join with Roman Catholics in their
public opposition to the government during the waning days of
Jean-Claude Duvalier's power.
Haiti - EDUCATION
Haiti's postcolonial leaders promoted education, at least in
principle. The 1805 constitution called for free and compulsory primary
education. The early rulers, Henri (Henry) Christophe (1807-20) and
Alexandre P�tion (1806-18), constructed schools; by 1820 there were
nineteen primary schools and three secondary lyc�es. The Education Act
of 1848 created rural primary schools with a more limited curriculum and
established colleges of medicine and law. A comprehensive system was
never developed, however, and the emerging elite who could afford the
cost preferred to send their children to school in France. The signing
of the Concordat with the Vatican in 1860 resulted in the arrival of
clerical teachers, further emphasizing the influence of the Roman
Catholic Church among the educated class. Roman Catholic schools
essentially became nonsecular public schools, jointly funded by the
Haitian government and the Vatican. The new teachers, mainly French
clergy, promoted an attachment to France in their classrooms.
Clerical teachers concentrated on developing the urban elite,
especially in the excellent new secondary schools. To their students,
they emphasized the greatness of France, while they expounded on Haiti's
backwardness and its lack of capacity for self-rule. Throughout the
nineteenth century, only a few priests ventured to the rural areas to
educate peasants. In both urban and rural settings, they followed a
classical curriculum, which emphasized literature and rote learning.
This curriculum remained unaltered until the 1980s, except during the
United States occupation, when efforts were made to establish vocational
schools. The elite resisted these efforts, and the government restored
the old system in 1934.
Education in Haiti changed during the 1970s and the 1980s. Primary
enrollments increased greatly, especially in urban areas. The
Jean-Claude Duvalier regime initiated administrative and curriculum
reforms. Nevertheless, as of 1982 about 65 percent of the population
over ten years of age had received no education and only 8 percent was
educated beyond the primary level.
<>Primary Schools
Primary education was compulsory in the late 1980s, but scarce
government funds and a limited number of schools resulted in low
enrollments in many rural areas. The school year began in October and
ended in July, with two-week vacations at Christmas and Easter. Regular
primary education consisted of six grades, preceded by two years of
kindergarten (enfantin), which was heavily attended and which
counted statistically in primary enrollments. Primary education
consisted of preparatory, elementary, and intermediate cycles, each of
which lasted two years. Promotion between grades depended on final
examinations and on class marks recorded in trimesters. At the end of
the sixth year, students who had passed their final examinations
received a graduation certificate (certificat d'�tudes primaires).
After receiving the certificate, students could take examinations for
entry into either secondary school or higher-primary school that led to
an elementary certificate (brevet �l�mentaire) after three
years. It was therefore possible for a student to take two years of
kindergarten, six years of primary school, and three years of
higher-primary studies for a total of eleven primary-school years. This
primaryeducation system, however, was expected to change in the 1980s
because of measures included in the 1978 Education Reform.
Primary-school enrollment was estimated at 642,000 in 1981, more than
twice the official figure for 1970. According to the 1982 census, 40
percent of children in the six-year-old to eleven-year-old bracket were
enrolled in school, compared with only 25 percent in 1971.
Primary-school enrollment was 74 percent in metropolitan Port-au-Prince,
but it was only 32 percent in rural areas. Most primary-school students
were enrolled in private establishments in 1981, a reversal from the
previous decade. An increase in the number of private primary schools
accounted for the switch.
School nutrition programs, which increased about 12 percent annually
between 1976 and 1984, contributed to increased primaryschool
enrollments. By 1986 about three out of four students received meals at
school. The United States and Europe supported the meal programs through
surplus commodities. Private development agencies also provided support.
At the same time, a number of private agencies, mostly from the United
States, sponsored students in primary schools, helping to pay for
tuition, books, and uniforms. By 1985 at least 75,000 primary students
received such support. One-third of these students, however, were in
Port-au-Prince. Enrollments of rural children continued to be low.
Dropout rates for primary students were high. According to some
estimates for the mid-1980s, more than half of Haiti's urban
primary-school students dropped out before completing the sixyear
primary cycle. In rural areas, the dropout rate was 80 percent. In
addition, dropout and repetition rates in rural areas were so high that
three of every five primary-school students were in either first or
second grade.
There were more than 14,000 primary-school teachers in Haiti in the
early 1980s; however, only about 40 percent of the public primary-school
teachers and about 30 percent of those in private schools had a
secondary-level or teacher training certificate. In 1979 public school
teachers were earning US$100 a month--the same salary paid to teachers
in 1905, when the profession was considered prestigious. Private school
salaries were about 50 percent lower than those of public school
teachers. The National Council of Government (Conseil National de
Gouvernement--CNG), reacting to demonstrations by teachers, agreed to
raise salaries in 1986. Private school teachers' salaries, however,
remained low. Because of the low salaries, many teachers left the
profession.
In the 1970s, the Haitian government, with support from the World
Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), began to reform its educational system, mostly at
the primary level. In 1978 the government unified educational
administration for the first time by putting rural schools under the
authority of the Department of National Education. Before 1978 rural
schools had been administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural
Resources. The education reform also introduced a new structure for
primary classes, established Creole as the language of instruction, and
introduced new curricula and procedures for teacher certification. The
new structure consisted of ten years of primary education in one
four-year and two three-year cycles, followed by three years of
secondary education. Promotion from first to second grade and from third
to fourth grade was to be automatic in order to prevent large numbers of
students from repeating grades and overloading the system at the lower
grades. The new curriculum for first through fourth grades included
three months of study skills and classes in reading, writing,
mathematics, and environmental sciences.
Haiti - Secondary Education
Haiti's most important institution of higher education in the 1980s
was the University of Haiti. Its origins date to the 1820s, when
colleges of medicine and law were established. In 1942 the various
faculties merged into the University of Haiti. After a student strike in
1960, the Duvalier government brought the university under firm
government control and renamed it the State University. The government
restored the original name in 1986.
In 1981 there were 4,099 students at the University of Haiti, of whom
26 percent were enrolled in the Faculty of Law and Economics; 25
percent, in the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy; 17 percent, in the
Faculty of Administration and Management; and 11 percent, in the Faculty
of Science and Topography. Despite the important role played by
agriculture in the Haitian economy, only 5 percent of the university's
students were enrolled in the Faculty of Agronomy and Veterinary
Medicine. In 1981 the University of Haiti had 559 professors, compared
with 207 in 1967. Most professors worked part time, were paid on an
hourly basis, and had little time for contact with students. The
University of Haiti also suffered severe shortages of books and other
materials.
Two private post-secondary institutions were established in the
1980s--the Institut Universitaire Roi Christophe in CapHa�tien and the
Institut International d'Etudes Universitaires in Port-au-Prince. Other
private institutions of higher learning included a school of theology
and law schools in Cap-Ha�tien, Gona�ves, Les Cayes, J�r�mie, and
Fort Libert�. A business school, the Institut des Hautes Etudes
Economiques et Commerciales, was established in Port-au-Prince in 1961.
An engineering school, the Institut Sup�rieur Technique d'Ha�ti, was
founded in Port-au-Prince in 1962. The Institut de Technique
Electronique d'Ha�ti, also in Port-au-Prince, provided instruction in
electrical engineering.
Haiti - HEALTH
Nutrition and Disease
In the mid-1980s, the Haitian government estimated that the average
daily nutritional consumption level in the country was 1,901 calories
per person, including 41.1 grams of protein. These figures represented
86 percent and 69 percent, respectively, of the World Health
Organization's recommendations for adequate nutrition. In rural areas,
the average person consumed about 1,300 calories, including 30 grams of
protein per day. A national survey in 1978 showed that 77 percent of
children in Haiti were malnourished. Anemia was also a common problem
among children and women.
Infant and child health were poor. The infant mortality rate was 124
per 1,000 live births in 1983. A quarter of all registered deaths
occurred among infants who were younger than one year old; half of all
deaths occurred among children under five. Most of these deaths resulted
from infectious diseases, especially diarrheal illnesses. Malnutrition
and acute respiratory illness also presented serious problems for
infants and children. For adults, malaria was among the more serious
problems; some 85 percent of the population lived in malarial areas.
Tuberculosis and parasitic infections continued to be serious health
hazards, and typhoid fever was endemic. Poor sanitation contributed to
poor health indicators. In 1984 less than 20 percent of the population
had toilets or latrines. Only one-fourth of the rural population had
access to potable water. Life expectancy at birth was forty-eight years
in 1983, and the general mortality rate was 17 per 1,000 population.
<>AIDS
In 1987 there were an estimated 1,500 people suffering from acquired
immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in Haiti. Most of the cases were
reported in Port-au-Prince. The earliest reported case of human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection was in 1978, and the earliest
case of AIDS-related Karposi's sarcoma was in 1979. About two of every
five AIDS patients in Haiti in 1987 were women. The exact number of
people infected with HIV was unknown, but one sample of pregnant women
in a poor neighborhood of the capital revealed that 8 percent tested
positive for the virus. Most people infected with HIV appear to have
contracted the virus through heterosexual intercourse. Transfusions of
infected blood also were responsible for transmitting the virus to large
numbers of people, especially women, who routinely received blood after
childbirth. The Haitian Red Cross did not begin screening the blood
supply in Port-au-Prince for HIV until 1986. Blood supplies outside the
capital continued to be unscreened in the late 1980s. The use of
contaminated needles accounted for 5 percent of the country's AIDS
cases.
Homosexual activity has contributed to the spread of AIDS in Haiti.
AIDS transmission was also related to female and male prostitution. At
least 50 percent of the female prostitutes in the capital city's main
prostitution center were believed to be infected with HIV.
Because of the prevalence of AIDS in the Haitian immigrant
population, the United States Center for Disease Control classified
Haitians as a high-risk group for the disease in 1982. It rescinded the
classification in 1985, however. Early studies suggested that Haiti
might have been the origin of the disease. By the late 1980s, most AIDS
researchers in Haiti claimed that male homosexual tourists brought the
disease to the country in the late 1970s.
Haiti - Health Services
Modern health services were inadequate in the late 1980s. In 1982 the
country had 810 physicians, 83 dentists, 758 nurses, 1,564 auxiliary
nurses, and 403 health agents. Haiti had about one doctor for every
6,600 people and one nurse for every 8,000 people. Health services were
concentrated in the capital area. Thus, in the most poorly served area
of the country, there was only one physician for every 21,000 people. In
the mid-1980s, there were thirty-eight hospitals in the country, more
than half of which were in the Port-au-Prince area. Nongovernmental
organizations provided almost half of the health services in the country
in the late 1980s.
Most Haitians continued to meet their health-care needs through
traditional remedies. Herbal medicine was widely used, especially in
rural areas, although environmental deterioration made some herbs more
difficult to obtain. In addition to home remedies, herbal specialists (dokt�
fey) provided massage and herbal remedies. Many voodoo specialists
were also experts in herbal remedies. Traditional midwives assisted at
most rural births. Many midwives received training in modern methods
from the government. Traditional religion, used by many to diagnose and
treat, has served well in some cases when modern medicine was not
available.
Haiti - Welfare
