In Haiti, gender-based violence was common already before the 12 January. The earthquake has made things worse: lack of security in the thousands of tent camps scattered in the capital city, and an increased incidence of abuse crimes. We recently documented some touching stories in our Solidar’IT report “Women: the box of grief”. We could say that Ayiti SMS SOS too has a box of grief that contains SMS messages instead of anonymous, handwritten letters, but the two methods stem from the same wish to fight gender-based violence, human trafficking and other crimes against the most vulnerable.

Sofonie is 25 years old and well determined to break the silence about these abuses. She fled the camp where she was relocated after his house was damaged for fear of being raped, and she was also ousted from her own district as men didn’t like her social activism and participation in the distribution of aid. We had the privilege to meet Sofie in Port-au-Prince, listen to her story of courage and determination, and better understand the reasons behind her involvement in Ayiti SMS SOS.

This case would have probably gone unreported without Ayiti SMS SOS, as victims are often afraid, or sensitive about speaking out, or they do not have any channel to voice what happened. Instead, through the platform the message can be responded to. Sofonie explained that she has been talking to victims to reassure them. Even just having the possibility to talk to somebody about the violence is very beneficial for the victim. The most critical cases are also referred to the police or other NGO, which can intervene on the terrain. This allows different reports to be produced, and the tracking of each individual abuse case.

Speaking out is key to stop these types of violence, often hidden inside the four walls where a family lives. Or inside a camp. The “Tree of Violence” is a fascinating representation of the problem, easily understood by everybody. In the audio that follows, Aashika Damodar, founder of Survivors Connect, the organisation that created the program, describes why the tree grows, and why it must be cut right at its roots.

One of the crimes recorded by Ayiti SMS SOS is the plague of restavek (“stay with” in Creole): restaveks are children sold as servants, which in fact become invisible to the society, losing all rights and often abused by their new “owner”. A recent shocking report by Dan Harris for ABC News well illustrates this modern-day form of slavery.

In this interview, Aashika explains how these human rights crimes can be fought in Haiti, through awareness campaigns, training, and the use of crowdsourcing and SMS platforms.

Ayiti SMS SOS is based on the Ushahidi crowdsourcing platform and the Frontline SMS functionality. Crowdsourcing means sourcing information “through the crowds”, that is through spontaneous messages that can arrive through several channels, for example phone calls, SMS, or via internet. More importantly, Ushahidi provides this mapping functionality that is so important in situations of emergency, or as in the case of Ayiti SMS SOS, information that needs to be tracked precisely. Ushahidi is an open-source platform, so available to everybody, and it can be readapted to cater for virtually any case where crowdsourcing is important.

As Survivors Connect did, for a new long-term mission that we hope will create much needed relief to the women of Haiti.

Everywhere in Port-au-Prince, small makeshift shelters are packed one against the other. Most of these camps have forced people that did not know each other to live a harsh life together. Seven months after the earthquake these shelters and way of existence have become routine, complete with temporary markets and street life. But a multitude of problems are hiding behind it and this is what Madame Lamercie’s GBV programme is endeavouring to vocalise.

Near the entrance of Camp Acra in Delmas 30, a wooden readymade shelter welcomes women every day to the GBV’s workshops in sewing, cosmetics and painting. Launched by Madame Lamercie and aided by a small team, they use these workshops to encourage women to share their experiences and problems. She explained to us that many women in the camps are in unsafe situations and several of them have been subject to violence and abuse. Her objective is to find solution, one by one, to resolve some of the problems.

The workshops are designed to encourage communication, yet several women find it hard to express their feelings openly so a box sits in the middle of the room. Mme Lamercie encourages women to write and submit their experiences anonymously so they can be addressed.

Every Friday at 11am, she opens the “box of grief” and reads out all messages to the group. The atmosphere gets rather tense, and face expressions reveal the concealed anguish. Small weeps and moans are heard during the reading of these terrible stories. In the audio portfolio that follows, everybody can listen to the stories and share in this hard but necessary moment of revelation.

As it often happens in Haiti, all activities end in music and cheerfulness. And just like a therapy, once these women have found the strength to speak out and listen to each other’s stories, joy and laughs burst out more vigorously than ever.