If occupying public space represents a conquest, finding a job is a miracle, according to interviews conducted by AyiboPost with three people suffering from dwarfism
“Biological anomaly”.
“Half-woman.”
And other hurtful qualifiers…
The streets of Port-au-Prince burst Muriette Jean-Baptiste’s eardrums.
This constant verbal and psychological violence sometimes turns into physical aggression even within his family.
In 2017, a vaginal hemorrhage struck the young woman for eight days, after a violent and unjustified attack by her own brother.
“No one thought of taking me to the hospital, because I am unloved in my family because of my disability,” Jean-Baptiste laments to AyiboPost.
Suffering from dwarfism, doctors diagnosed the lady with imperfect osteology. It is a collagen disease, causing abnormal fragility and generalized bones.
People affected by this handicap hereditary are often very small.
But Haitian society, whose laws do not systematically punish discrimination, does not always show leniency.
No one thought of taking me to the hospital, because I am unloved in my family because of my disability.
The body of Jean-Baptiste, 1m18 tall, still retains the memory of family abuse: his mouth is missing four teeth – the result of his mother’s repeated blows to his face, according to him.
Other families, like that of Wesley Ed Isidore, are more kind.
However, the streets remain hostile.
To go out, the computer technology student in a vocational school in Port-au-Prince is often “accompanied because of people’s mockery”.
Inappropriate gestures are never far away. “In the street,” says Isidore, “people sometimes take out their cell phones and take a photo or video of me without my consent: that annoys me. »
Read also: Rape, harassment… the lot of women who live with a disability in Haiti
Many people with dwarfism are unable to complete their studies because of mockery and harassment in the school environment, explains to AyiboPost Sheilla Privert, vice-president of the Athletic Association of Small People of Haiti (AAPPTH ).
From left to right: Wesley Ed Isidore, general secretary of AAPPTH, Sheilla Privert, vice-president and Nitoyson Exantus, President, in an activity at the premises of the organization of deprived and disabled children of Haiti (OEDHH) in October 2023.
Esther Simon, who still lives off the assistance of her parents at 31, says she suffered this situation.
“My classmates were always annoying me,” says Simon. “Sometimes, I insulted them so that they would leave me alone,” recalls the lady who finally ended her studies after her official 6th grade exams.e year.
Sexual allusions and assaults are also common. “Often, strangers look at me and say that they imagine me in their beds,” says Vastie Jean, 30, who suffers from curvature of the legs.
Community members are sometimes forced to adopt defense mechanisms.
According to Pascal Nery Jean-Charles, president of the Haitian psychology association (AHPSY), they “often put themselves aside, because they anticipate people’s mocking parentheses. Just as, continues the specialist, they can adopt aggressive and violent behavior in relation to the discriminatory charge they face.
From left to right: the Haitian actor nicknamed Bri Sapat and Nitoyson Exantus.
If occupying public space represents a conquest, finding a job is a miracle, according to interviews conducted by AyiboPost with three people suffering from dwarfism.
Nitoyson Exantus, 1m34, is one of the exceptions in this community where prejudice seems to keep members unemployed, much more than the overall tightening of the job market in Haiti.
The relative success of Exantus has not been a smooth ride. Before joining the public administration as an accountant at the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MENFP), following a competition in October 2020, Exantus had, six years previously, succeeded — according to his statements — with flying colors a competition to work in a bank in Gonaïves.
At the time, Exantus did not get the job. If no official explanation has been given, the accounting graduate from the Public University of Gonaïves (UPAG) will learn unflattering details about the recruitment process from people close to the institution.
“We didn’t think it was worth bothering with someone of my stature because I would have needed a much higher chair so that I could see the customers and a small bench for my feet which would otherwise not be would not touch the ground,” reports Exantus.
From left to right: Wesley Ed Isidore and Nitoyson Exantus, general secretary and president of AAPPTH.
Today, the man tries to help his community by chairing the Athletic Association of Small People of Haiti (AAPPTH), created on December 15, 2018.
This institution, which brings together nearly twenty people affected by dwarfism across the country, is working to force the Haitian state to respect the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 13. 2006.
Ratified by the Haitian government in 2009, this convention prohibits violence, exploitation and mistreatment of people living with disabilities.
The state does little to combat discrimination, or to encourage the hiring of members of the community according to the AAPPTH.
Members of the AAPPTH.
Since 2018, the Human Resources Management Office (OMRH) and the Office of the Secretary of State for the Integration of People with Disabilities (BSEIPH) have annually organized a competition to employ 50 people with disabilities in the public service.
Although welcome, this initiative works haphazardly, according to testimonies. In a published article by AyiboPost on June 5, 2020, 50 winners demanded, two years after the competition in 2018, their effective integration into public administration.
The social assistance fund (CAS), a state institution helping the most deprived, is unable to properly fulfill its mission in a context where the current Minister of Social Affairs and Labor who heads the institution, Pierre Ricot Odney, as well as former executives, are indicted for corruption by an investigating judge.
Often, strangers look at me and say they imagine me in their beds.
When Muriette Jean-Baptiste’s small false hair business went bankrupt in 2022, after five years of difficult operation, she went to the CAS as a last resort.
“They took my papers, and there was complete silence,” laments Jean-Baptiste who says he had no luck with the BSEIPH either.
Contacted by AyiboPost, Boyer Breithner, the logistics and communications manager of the CAS, maintains that the institution is making efforts to financially support poor people.
Genard Joseph, the Secretary of State for the integration of people with disabilities, could not be reached before publication.
Read also: Killed because they couldn’t hear
Specialists are calling for campaigns to combat discrimination against people with dwarfism. They also demand effective programs to hire them, as well as effective measures to combat harassment.
In the meantime, community members continue to demonstrate resilience in the face of discrimination.
“I didn’t choose to be this way,” says Nitoyson Exantus. “I strive every day to come into agreement with this truth. In need of changing my reality, I decided to live it,” he concludes.
Par Junior Legrand
Cover image: Four people with dwarfism | © Follow Okeke-Igbokwe
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