A human rights group is calling on Haitian authorities to improve the living conditions under which police officers work. The group claims many officers are housed in a dilapidated building severely damaged by the 2010 earthquake.
The National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH) in an open letter to Senator Nenel Cassy, the chairman of the “Economy and Finance” Commission, which is currently analyzing the nation’s next budget, said it is appalled by the miserable working conditions in which the police officers have to function.
Adjust national budget
The RNDDH has submitted a list of conditions it observed and recommends the budget be adjusted to make it possible to renovate, restore and equip the various police and sub-police stations across the country.
In its letter, the human rights group notes that police officers “are not able to meet the needs of the population” and blame the situation for them being “housed in a dilapidated building severely damaged by the earthquake of 2010.”
Leaves something to be desired
“Moreover, the part which housed the …fire-fighters is now abandoned,” the RNDDH said, noting that “since the earthquake of 2010, the condition of the building housing Petit-Goâve police station leaves something to be desired: the walls are cracked and the sanitary block is dysfunctional.”
It said that other police stations including the one of Delmas 3 located at a lower level than the road linking Delmas and Pétion-ville, “is visible only to the people used to frequent it.”
The human rights group said that in the departments of the north and the center, the police stations of Port-Margot and Maissade, were burnt down for a few years, have not since been restored or repaired.
“Housed in two small rooms, constituting both the office of the Head and the office of the Chief of Post, the sub-stations of St. Charles and that of Bicentenaire each have a nauseous and sordid sanitary block. In the rainy season, the building housing the sub-police station of Bicentenaire becomes very difficult to access,” the human rights group also wrote in the open letter to the Commission chairman.
