Women's Movement Mourns Death of 3 Haitian Leaders

[tekisui]

Source: CNN


Myriam Merlet was one of three leading activists in the Haitian women's movement who died, a victim of the earthquake.


(CNN) -- One returned to her Haitian roots, to give voice to women, honor their stories and shape their futures.

Another urged women to pack a courtroom in Haiti, where she succeeded in getting a guilty verdict against a man who battered his wife.

A third joined the others and helped change the law to make rape, long a political weapon in Haiti, a punishable crime.

Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin and Anne Marie Coriolan, founders of three of the country's most important advocacy organizations working on behalf of women and girls, are confirmed dead -- victims of last week's 7.0 earthquake.

And their deaths have left members of the women's movement, Haitian and otherwise, reeling.

"Words are missing for me. I lost a large chunk of my personal, political and social life," Carolle Charles wrote in an e-mail to colleagues. The Haitian-born sociology professor at Baruch College in New York is chair of Dwa Fanm (meaning "Women's Rights" in Creole), a Brooklyn-based advocacy group. These women "were my friends, my colleagues and my associates. I cannot envision going to Haiti without seeing them."

more: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/01/20/haitian.womens.movement.mourns/?hpt=C1

[Kitty Herder]

1. Heartbreaking.