After Christian Relief Workers Dominated Haiti, A Baby Boom

Were you thinking about Haiti, while the east coast of the U.S. was under varying levels of attack from earthquakes and hurricanes? Well, 19 months after the quake, things are not great! For instance, there are nearly 600,000 people still leaving in tent camps, which are becoming permanent ways of living.

“We have NGOs telling us, we are packing up and leaving at the end of this month,” said Emmanuelle Schneider, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, who blames a lack of funding for the departures. “Of the $300 million consolidated appeal the U.N. system is requesting to cover humanitarian needs, only 52 percent has been funded.”

But that’s not the rough part: “Population explosions after a disaster are nothing new. But in a country already rattled by a collapsed health system, cholera epidemic and now sordid conditions in congested camps, experts say they are worried about the impact. Adding to the concerns are conditions under which the pregnancies are occurring: insecurity and rapes in the camps despite increased U.N. peacekeeper patrols, lack of education and medical services, and desperation among girls, some as young as 13.” Still, a big caveat: there’s no numbers for this “population explosion” (not that such numbers would exactly be easy to gather!) so I’m not all in on this. But it does seem possible that there could maybe be a relationship between the government-funded Christian charity movement in Haiti and unintended pregnancy.