The roots of Haitian poverty need to be exposed. This is a result of imperialism in ways that are unknown.
Question: why is Port au Prince so swollen with rural people? Why did it suddenly grow to two million?
“Plans for the agricultural sector include reviving that rice production, “a strategic commodity,” according to fisheries director Roberto Badieu.
Rice was once the country’s leading export, until Haiti succumbed to International Monetary Fund pressures and opened its borders to foreign trade — mostly U.S. — in the mid-1980s, the heyday of the free-market “neoliberal” economic model, now under attack throughout the developing world
With the elimination of trade barriers, the country was flooded with subsidized U.S. rice, which spelled disaster for local producers.
Domestic and foreign sales of Haitian rice dropped by 50 percent, pushing droves of almost famine-stricken peasants towards the capital’s slums. In just over two decades, the population of Port-au-Prince doubled to an estimated four million people today.
Because of the central government’s historic neglect of the south, separatist sentiments flare up there from time to time, noted Banatte.
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The roots of Haitian poverty
Read more of this story at:
Flood of US rice into Haiti drives farmers into city slums - (June 10, 2005)
Haitian workers earn only 6 cents for every pair of Disney “101 Dalmatians” outfit that Disney sells for $20. Disney pays its workers in Haiti about 28 cents an hour.
Sweat shops - (2003)
Another Bush brings HELL to Haiti - (March 10, 2004)
Mixed US signals helped tilt Haiti toward chaos - (Jan 29, 2006)
The poor in these countries certainly need a means to make some money... But it's actually the foreign corporation's exploitation of these poor people by paying them very little. In the long run this means more profit ($$$) for THE COMPANY.
HATI - perverted priorities - corpses, sham elections, and sweatshops
In the fall of 2008, Haiti was in the news daily as four back-to-back tropical storms and hurricanes hammered the impoverished island. The fragile economy of the hemisphere's poorest country plummeted by 15% overnight, and years of economic development work washed out to sea, leaving people even more destitute.
Haiti needs our urgent help. The world's attention has moved on after the natural disasters, but the overwhelming problems confronting Haiti remain. Consider the statistics:
* Haiti's ranking on the UN Human Development Index is lower than that of Sudan and Bangladesh
* More than 6 million of 9 million Haitians live in poverty -- half of them on less than $1 a day
* One of eight children will die before the age of five
* 3 million people are classified as "food insecure."
End child trafficking, exploitation in Haiti
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