By: Staff Writer
July 15, 2022
A Haitian-American activist said that “hundreds” of Haitians are sleeping on the streets in Mexico, which allows for women to be raped and then miscarry due to lack of medical attention.
Jean Sadraque Cius, a Haitian activist and lead pastor at the People Outreach Ministry, based in Houston, Texas, told Caribbean Magazine Plus that he has gotten reports that Haitian women are being raped and forced into having abortions on the Mexican side of the Texas/Mexico border.
This comes on the heels of a report issued by the US Department of Homeland Security: US Custom and Border Protection, which said that last year’s Haitian horseback round-up at the Texas border was improperly handled by the agency and that the top command at the agency “lost control” of the situation as it escalated.
Pastor Cius added that despite the obvious racism displayed by US border agents in the Haitian-horseback roundup, the situation on the Mexican side of the border for Haitians is “much worse.”
Pastor Cius is known in the Texas/Mexico border area for being an advocate for the humane treatment of Haitians trying to make their way into the US. A Haitian himself, he has spent the better half of the last 30 years helping Haitian migrants to get acclimated to the US, but this period has been the most trying for him as the waves of Haitians needing help goes beyond his church in Texas. “I’m very much involved in helping the Haitian people at the border. I’m taking a trip to Mexico in September and I’m taking a delegation with me to check out some issues.”
He added: “I have a few houses over there with Haitians in them because over there it is so hard for Haitians because they are not even allowing Haitians to lease houses or apartments. Haitians are living on the streets under the sun, they sleep there at night all of this on the Mexican side of the border.
“They are on the streets and exposed to all kinds of diseases. Haitian women are being raped daily. Young girls are being raped by gangsters and when they get pregnant they are even afraid to even consult with doctors, so they often lose the baby. There are hundreds of them like this in Mexico.”
While reports of Haitians being mistreated in Mexico is not new, this adds to the misery that many Haitian migrants trying to enter the US face from their trek from as far as Brazil and Argentina in some cases, all the way up through the Darién Gap, which is the strip of land between the North and South American continents within Central America, consisting of a large watershed, forest, and mountains in Panama’s Darién Province and the northern portion of Colombia’s Chocó Department. Many Haitians and other migrants die at this point before they even make as far as the Mexican border with Guatemala and Belize.
Pastor Cius also said: “I’m just doing what I know how to do and that is provide them with places and shelters. I have one place with over 114 Haitians and another one with just 10 Haitians.”
Turning his attention to the recent US Border protection report on Haitians being rounded up at the Del Rio border the US shares with Mexico, Pastor Cius said: “The only thing I can say it is racist. Racism is alive and well in America.
“They have only did this to the Haitians, which is unfortunate because Haitians stood for America in 1779. But yet there has never been on President or one administration that stood for Haitians. They always refuse to allow them to apply for asylum where they have allowed for every other country to come and apply for asylum.
“America keeps Haitians in detention for longer, for whatever reason. They are making lives more miserable for Haitians than any other nation in this world and for no reason.”
He continued, “If there is any national American should help it should be Haiti because they were the only nation that stood with them and fought for them on their behalf to allow them to gain the freedom that they have in place right now, Haitians did that.”
Pastor Cius will continue to lease houses for Haitians in Texas and also in Mexico as long as he can along with providing them with food and clothes.