The Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH), Solidarité fanm ayisyèn (SOFA) and the National Union of Haitian Normaliens (UNNOH), revolted and scandalized by the acts of brutality of Clément Lanier Geffrard against the schoolgirl Britney Bernard in Saint-Marc, affirm that the sanctions must go beyond a simple suspension of the activities of the Georges Sylvain de Frecyneau Institution. Facilitating the continuation of school activities but with new school management staff is also recommended.
The representative of SOFA, Tamar Michel Brody condemns the actions of Clément Lanier Geffrard, director of the Georges Sylvain de Frecyneau Institution in Saint-Marc, against the schoolgirl Britney Bernard. Such retrograde behavior aims at a return to barbarism, to the trivialization of women’s rights, she denounces. The Women’s League for Social Action, a pioneering Haitian organization in the fight for the respect and emancipation of women, has already introduced the fight against discrimination and the domination of women in the school environment, considered a space for human socialization, affirms Tamar Michel Brody. She calls for a demonstration of justice against the head of the school Clément Lanier Geffrard.
As part of a joint conference at the POHDH headquarters, this Monday, UNNOH evokes the barbaric, uncivil and criminal scope of the act perpetrated last Monday, May 20 in Saint-Marc by Clément Lanier Geffrard against of schoolgirl Britney Bernard. This unspeakable attitude of Geffrard, as well as the behavior of the other members of the school attending the scene as spectators, testifies to a deficit of citizenship and humanity, believes the coordinator of UNNOH, Josué Mérilien. He calls for support and reparation measures for the benefit of the victim, legal sanctions to avoid the repetition of such acts of mistreatment, he insists.
The Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training (MENFP) and the National Education Fund (FNE) are invited to initiate training modules for teachers. In the trade unionist’s opinion, citizenship education is fundamental in changing teachers’ behavior. The urgency of applying citizenship education as a subject to enhance the Haitian being, continues Josué Mérilien. The leader of UNNOH calls for the effective teaching of citizenship education in all establishments and invites UNESCO, FNE, MENFP to invest funds in school textbooks related to citizenship education.
The POHDH, through its executive secretary, Alermy Piervilus, is outraged against the acts of violence suffered by the schoolgirl Britney Bernard in her school space. Such attitudes, recalls the head of the POHDH, constitute a violation of the right to physical integrity, condemned by international instruments, in particular the convention repressing degrading inhuman treatment inflicted, ratified by Haiti. The POHDH calls on the judicial authorities to adopt decisive measures to sanction the director of the Georges Sylvain Institution, Clément Lanier Geffrard.
Hervé Noel
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