Uplifting Haitian voices speaking their native tongue: Respond helps bring sexual violence advocacy to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Late one Friday afternoon in early March, one of our partner organizations, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), contacted me with an urgent request: to translate and subtitle a video from their Haitian partner organization, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) discussing the fight for justice for victims of sexual violence in Haiti. The video would be presented the following week, on International Women's Day (March 8), during a public hearing on widespread sexual violence against women and girls in Haiti, held by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The hearing was the result of a joint request by BAI; IJDH; and several other Haitian and international women's rights and human rights groups.
While Respond always pays its system-impacted translators and interpreters, including nearly everyone on the Kreyòl team, we also provide sliding scale and pro bono services for many of our grassroots partner organizations, including IJDH/BAI. "Respond's dedication to advancing language justice, including by working on a pro bono or sliding scale basis to further surmount exclusion, is an important scaffold for advancing other human rights and a deeply impactful act of solidarity," says Sasha Filippova, IJDH senior staff attorney. Given the quick turnaround, pro bono nature of the assignment, and the heavy subject matter, I decided to translate the video myself.
In it, lawyers Marie Kattia Dorestant and Gladys Thermezi describe how, for over twelve years, BAI has provided legal assistance to women and girls who are victims of sexual violence. Over the past three years, amid mounting violence–what Haitians call ensekirite, which translates literally to "insecurity" but which anthropologist Erica Caple James has defined as "the embodied uncertainty generated by political, criminal, economic, and also spiritual ruptures"–Dorestant and Thermezi have seen an increase in rape by armed gangs. Ensekirite has also "practically paralyzed" the justice system itself, Dorestant explains. In Thermezi's words, "armed gangs…have taken the courts hostage" in Port-au-Prince and the nearby city of Croix-des-Bouquets. Meanwhile, a climate of pervasive impunity reigns, one in which some corrupt judges sell justice, and "the perpetrators are at all levels of society: they are in the victims’ homes, their schools, their churches, and all sectors of social and political life." But, Dorestant adds, this "doesn’t stop BAI from accompanying the victims to court to seek justice and reparations."
(Before I continue, a few words about these so-called gangs. While some foreign news reports would have you believe that the gangs who control the country–killing and raping with impunity; kidnapping and extorting ordinary people; blocking roads and ports; forcing schools to close; preventing people from leaving their homes, making a living, or living their lives–are the enemies of the government and the international community, gang leaders are in fact directly connected to Haiti's business and political elites, who are in turn supported by the very international governments that suggest armed foreign intervention as a way to solve the gang problem. "The gangs are being armed by both Haitian elites and foreigners who are the masterminds behind the scenes," writes scholar Cécile Accilien. "These gangs are connected to international actors through money laundering, drugs and guns. Haiti does not produce guns. How is it that so many guns are able to enter the country, to the point that there are armies of gangs?")
The IACHR has a pattern of not prioritizing language access for Kreyòl speakers. As IJDH notes of a recording of another hearing about the US's deportation of Haitians, "This recording was made by IJDH from the interpretation streams provided by IACHR. There was no option for interpretation into Haitian Creole, only French, which most Haitians do not speak. This is emblematic of a broader failure by the IACHR to prioritize language justice and ensure participation by and accessibility for marginalized communities and Haitians specifically." This time, it was crucial that the IACHR hearing participants understand the words, experiences, and expertise of Dorestant and Thermezi, who spoke in Kreyòl. So after I finished the translation, I sent a WhatsApp message to my colleague Dachiny (Dash) Ewekengha, who is one of Respond's French team leads, as well as the first professional subtitler in the Republic of Congo.
"Hi Dash!" I wrote, my cheerful punctuation belying a growing sense of panic. "I have transcribed and translated some audio in Kreyòl. I can manually do the time codes (because this is the only way I've done it, like a total fool) but was wondering if you could help with the mechanics of actually putting in the subtitles?"
And Dash–a gentleman, a mensch, as they say in my ancestral tongue–wrote back: "Sure Laura! We can do it tomorrow evening if you want. It’s already 11pm here. 😅"
That is how two translators, one in Durham, North Carolina and the other in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, spent two hours together on a Saturday, painstakingly creating subtitles for a video from Haiti. This is one of the special things about Respond: we support and strengthen one another's work, across language teams, borders, and time zones.
As a French-speaker, Dash could follow a lot of the Kreyòl, especially with the English in front of him. A few things gave him pause. "Why do they keep saying 'yo' at the ends of the sentences?" he asked.
"Oh, that's either a plural or a possessive suffix, in this case the latter." I explained. "Their homes, their schools, their churches – lakay yo, lekòl yo, legliz yo."
And some Kreyòl expressions made sense to him with a little prompting. "Kè sote," which I translated as "fear and anxiety," is the Kreyòl version of "cœur sauté," which means something like "jumping heart."
Thanks to Dash's willingness to help us out, we delivered the video to IJDH in time for them to play it during the hearing. You can watch it here (all imaginable content warnings apply here, including sexual violence against children).
"One of the systemic injustices that impede the realization of human rights for Haitians, especially ones from or working with marginalized communities, is linguistic exclusion," says Filippova. "Respond has been an extraordinary partner for us in bringing those communities and their perspectives into conversations and spaces that impact policies affecting their lives."
"Respond's dedication and generosity in uplifting Haitian voices speaking their native tongue," Filippova concludes, "are solidarity in its most meaningful form."
Press inquiries: media@respondcrisistranslation.org
