You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right. You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab. Link to read me page with more information. The Jasper House Haiti blog is designed to share stories, updates and testimonies that raise awareness, create dialogue and bring enlightenment to those seeking to become more involved in the advocacy and abolition of injustice.
It's Friday night in Jacmel, Haiti. The bars and restaurants are preparing for busy evenings full of happy patrons ready to eat, drink, dance and be merry with their loved ones. The music is turned up full blast, and the moonlight casts a soft glow that reflects off of the shimmer of short dresses and skirts of young women giddily holding their boyfriends' arms. In the midst of the gaiety and merriment, just one street away a very different spirit looms.
In the confines of much smaller and darker rooms, the local "cafes" begin to open for the night. Here, local men come to revel and drink, and buy a girl of their choice for a very small and negotiable price. They make their orders as if creating a meal a la carte. Tall or short, curly or straight hair, they choose girls as young as fourteen and fifteen years old as if they are flavors in an ice cream parlor.
For a dollar or two they can use them for a few hours, or if they are willing to go as high as five or ten dollars, they can have them the entire night. Cars drive past, headlights exposing what seems like nothing more than a corner bar. But, behind emotionless faces, behind the graffiti covered walls, lies young women caught in the web of exploitation, abuse and desolation. Several miles down the road, in a few neighborhoods over, a young, single mother finds herself alone with three children.
After getting pregnant at the age of fifteen, her family kicked her out without a second thought. With only a third grade education, and now twenty-one with three small children, her options are extremely limited. Scared, alone, and without anyone to turn to, she provides for her family the only way she knows how.
