January 12 : remembering is not enough,we must repair
January 12, 2010 remains a moment of rupture in Haiti’s history. In a matter of seconds, the earth shook, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives, destroying families and entire neighborhoods, and profoundly reshaping the country. Sixteen years later, the pain remains vivid. Mourning is not complete. But memory, as necessary as it is, cannot be an end in itself.
The earthquake did not only destroy infrastructure. With extreme brutality, it exposed long-standing structural vulnerabilities: deep inequalities, chronic poverty, non-existent or insufficient public services, and the persistent exclusion of the most vulnerable populations. January 12 did not create these injustices; it laid them bare.
Commemorating this date therefore carries a clear obligation: to transform memory into responsibility.
In the hours and days following the disaster, as the State was largely overwhelmed, the survival of communities depended on local solidarity, often led by women. Women’s and feminist organizations were among the first to structure aid, organize community responses, and hold the social fabric together amid absolute chaos.
Organizations such as Solidarité des Femmes Haïtiennes (SOFA), Kay Fanm, and other women’s networks organized the collection and distribution of food, clothing, and medicines. They prepared and distributed hygiene kits tailored to the specific needs of women and girls, addressing reproductive health issues too often overlooked in emergency responses. They also organized community protection brigades to help secure affected areas and displacement camps.
In these camps, precarious conditions quickly exposed women and girls to a sharp rise in sexual violence. Faced with this reality, Haitian feminists refused silence. They established listening and psychosocial support spaces for survivors, documented cases of violence to alert authorities and the international community, and advocated for concrete security measures, including improved lighting and patrols in temporary shelter sites.
This work was carried out despite immense losses. The Haitian feminist movement was deeply marked by the deaths of emblematic figures such as Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin, and Anne-Marie Coriolan. Yet far from collapsing, the movement continued to carry a vision: one of reconstruction that would not be merely material, but also social, economic, and political.
And yet, despite this essential engagement, women and community organizations were too often pushed to the margins of post-earthquake decision-making processes. This approach reproduced top-down aid models, weakly rooted in local realities and insufficiently attentive to human rights and gender equality.
Sixteen years later, as the country faces a multidimensional crisis (socio-political, economic, and humanitarian) the question remains pressing: have we truly learned the lessons of January 12?
We are convinced that the crises Haiti is experiencing are not inevitable. They are the result of political, economic, and social choices. And what human beings have built, they can transform.
This requires placing human rights at the heart of every response, humanitarian and developmental alike. It means recognizing women not as mere beneficiaries, but as central actors of resilience and change. It also requires sustained investment in communities -strengthening local agriculture, social protection, and access to water, health, and education- rather than multiplying short-term responses without a long-term vision.
Remembering January 12 implies a shared responsibility: that of the Haitian State, called upon to guarantee fundamental rights and rebuild trust; that of international partners, who must align their support with locally defined priorities, with coherence and accountability; and that of civil society, which continues, despite risks, to defend human dignity.
The memory of January 12 must not remain frozen in pain. It must become a force to demand better: better than unfulfilled promises, better than reconstruction models that reproduce inequalities, better than the erasure of the women who held the country together in its darkest hours.
Honoring the victims of the earthquake, sixteen years on, means refusing injustice as a legacy. It means choosing a Haiti where dignity is non-negotiable, where women occupy the central place they have always assumed in practice, and where remembering truly means repairing.
Remembering is not enough. It is time to repair.
Angeline ANNESTEUS | Country Director