Haitian Women's Groups Use Mother's Day to Demand Protection for Victims of Gang Violence

On May 29–30, 2026 — surrounding Haitian Mother's Day — more than a dozen mothers gathered at the International Lawyers' Office (BAI) in Port-au-Prince, honored by women's organizations who used the occasion to make a public demand: protection for victims of gang violence. Organizers stressed that mothers are among the primary victims of Haiti's gang crisis — losing children to gang recruitment and killings, losing homes to arson and displacement, and facing sexual violence in IDP camps where they are forced to shelter. The event was reported by the Haitian Times on May 30. The UN has confirmed that women and children make up more than half of Haiti's approximately 1.5 million internally displaced persons as of May 2026. The protest followed on the heels of the May 28 Cité Soleil street protest — where approximately two dozen residents held tree branches to demand police protection even as gunshots rang nearby — and the May 25–27 wave of arson, mass shootings, looting, and reported beheadings in Cité Soleil documented by the Associated Press. Women's and human rights groups noted that the Gang Suppression Force's ~800-person advance force — scheduled to formally launch full operations June 1 — has no presence in Cité Soleil, Martissant, or the Artibonite, the areas with the most severe atrocities against women and children. BINUH's Q1 2026 report documented 292 formal sexual violence reports (Jan–Mar 2026), primarily gang rape of women and girls aged 12–17 — while UN monitoring estimates the true rate at approximately 21 GBV cases per day, a 43% increase from Q4 2025.