Current Issues In Haiti

Haiti is a prime example of how human needs in one area of the world are interdependent with social conditions elsewhere in the world. Haiti, for most of its history has been overwhelmed with economic

Illness and disease along with poverty still plague Haiti today. The effort to try and recover from the most recent earthquake tragedy has Haitians concerned. The conditions that they have endured in the past just to survive are worse than the conditions brought on by the earthquake. Some Haitian natives feel the Government is moving a bit slow in cleaning up and getting

In order to understand Haiti we must first put ourselves in their shoes. At one stage or another, every man, woman, or child will be faced with at least one issue that is now happening in Haiti. The issues involving Haiti has been a popular topic for the past two years. Since January twelfth two-thousand and ten. There are many factors which influenced the development of Haiti. Many people have abandoned Haiti over the past years. They have also given up hope for Haiti. Haiti is heralded by economic issues both political and social, foreign issues, military issues (minustah), presidential issues, and the recent earthquake. I plan to explain each of these factors in detail and give

The people of Haiti are also extremely poor. They are one on the poorest countries

The national population is continuing to increase at a 1.17% growth rate, which appears small, but consider that most developed countries have negative population growth rates. This is caused by two main factors; continuous births in a state that cannot support them, and the deportation of Haitians from the Dominican Republic, who’s population is decreasing. More than that, Haiti still lies in ruins following the 2010 earthquake, which, as previously mentioned, leaves a large percentage of the population without shelter, food, or work. Even worse is that Haiti’s economic status is continually deteriorating, caused by the previous two factors; population growth and geographic destruction. For that matter it is not helping the global economy at all, as a developed country would. Data shows that Haiti is truly the most under-developed country in the Western Hemisphere. This is due to the fact that it “is the most densely populated country in the Western Hemisphere” (Aronson 1), the fact that it is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has the least income per person, the fact that it does not have nearly enough food, shelter, clothing, water, or work for all of its people. With that, Haiti shows no signs of improvement in the near future, as it has nothing to build up

The French and their slaves populated the island of Haiti during the 18th century. In the late 1700’s, the slaves revolted against the French and began a thirteen-year war for their freedom. This war began the significant problems for Haiti. Today, Haiti suffers from malnutrition, low standards of living, and poor literacy, which Haiti still faces today.

When I was able to go to Haiti for a mission trip with my church. I saw so many people on the street and they looked like they were living out of boxes. Port-Au-Prince, Haiti is one of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. They also have very bad healthcare. Not many of the people there were living the life we are. Most of them are living on about 2 dollars per day. There isn’t much we could buy in Zeeland for 2 dollars. When I would walk down the streets. I see people and kids almost wearing rags for clothes. As I would walk down the street to the market it would smell like rotten food that is 2 months old. Haiti had a earthquake in 2010 that took them down. Almost everything was destroyed. It didn’t help with their poverty stats at all.

Another struggle is that, this country has yet to develop educationally or scientifically to a national level. But women are not the only ones affected by this epidemic. The average working class makes close to $660 a year. Also, 78% of Haitians are poor (less than US$2 a day), and more than half (54%) live in extreme poverty (less than US$1 a day) ("Haiti Statistics - Haiti Partners."). The average family consists of (a) working parent(s) (most don’t have the luxury of both) and ranging from three to four children. An American couldn’t even afford a Mcdouble at McDonalds for one dollar, let alone feed six people for one to two meals.

This free market system allows low labor costs and tariff-free access to the US for many of its exports. However, Haiti’s economy as struggled for decades. Within the last 7 years, Haiti has experienced substantial roadblocks on the path to economic growth: poverty, natural disasters, weak infrastructure, such as access to electricity, deforestation, soil erosion and inadequate supplies of potable water. Economic recovery has been impeded by the 2010 earthquake and 2012 hurricanes which adversely affected agricultural production and slowed public capital

Poverty in Haiti is mainly due to the slave population brought in by the French for labor during its colonial rule (they accounted for a third of the whole Atlantic slave trade (1)). How is this so? Well, because

Unlike most of Latin America, Haiti’s main colonizing power was France, not Spain or Portugal, after France was given one-third of Hispaniola. To this day you can see the lasting effects of colonialism in Haiti especially in comparison to the Dominican Republic which shares the same island. While Haiti, formerly Saint Domingue under French control, was at one time the world’s wealthiest sugar and coffee producer, the tides have changed in terms of Haiti’s economy and it is now one of the worst off in terms of measurement of GDP per capita and income inequality. This change largely took place after the Haitian revolution, which transformed Haiti’s economy to a rural subsistence economy, instead of the capital-intensive plantation economy it had been. As other states, including neighboring DR, developed competitive commodity industries, Haiti never jumped on that export-led growth path and there was overall less investment making its way to Haiti in comparison to other states in the region. Also, Haiti was not a part of the “Golden Age” period of Latin America from 1950-1973. With a brief understanding of Haiti’s background, a more solid understanding of their economic performance, challenges, assets and current conditions can be developed further.

Most of Haiti's problems start with the natural disasters such as the earthquakes and the hurricanes. The junior scholastic notes that the hurricane Mathews hit Haiti last October carrying winds of 145 miles per hour. This hurricane carried away almost everything in its path. It killed 1000 and left 175000 people home less, mentions the junior scholastic. Meanwhile the earthquake was no different, the junior scholastic states that the earthquake of 2010 killed 316000 and displaced 1.5 million people.The earthquake and hurricane are only some natural disasters that have hit Haiti. Haiti has faced a lot more because of its location.

Starvation is a huge issue in Haiti. One child dies every six seconds from the scarce amounts of food here. Poverty in Haiti is the leading cause of the lacking amounts of food for children here. This picture saddens me to think that there are children in other places around the world dying from something that I wouldn't even think of dying from. Food is something so plentiful in America; it's so normal to come home from school or where ever I am during the day and have food available to me. In some countries, like Haiti, they are blessed to get a small portion of food a day. Some children there don't have access to food for weeks at a time. it's really sad to know that my own country; (America) has so much food and a lot of access to it, and we don't majorly help out Haiti. We have helped them out by sending food but that doesn't solve the problem of millions of people. How did Haiti become so poor?

Haiti is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western third of the island of Hispaniola. It is the third largest Caribbean nation with a population of 10.4 million which makes it the most populous full-member state of the Caribbean community. Haiti is also the poorest country in the Americas as measured by the human development index. Haiti is so poor that people used to work as restavecs(unpaid household servant).half of the children in Haiti are unvaccinated.2%of the total population are hiv +.because of poverty only the sanitation condition of Haiti is very poor which results in increase of diseases.

Poverty, corruption, and poor access to education are the most serious disadvantages that Haiti faces. Two-thirds of the country depends on agriculture, consisting of mainly small-scale subsistence farming. This sector is high vulnerable to damage from natural disasters and the country’s widespread deforestation (which have caused periodic flooding). Additionally, Haiti suffers from high inflation, lack of investment,