Widespread malnutrition plagues Haiti’s National Penitentiary, a lock-up so crowded that prisoners must take turns sleeping in the available space and spend most of their time standing in their cells.
, co-founder and CEO of Aspen-based nonprofit , visited the penitentiary in Port Au Prince and came away so shaken by what she saw that she was determined to do something about it.
“There are almost 4,200 detainees, no toilets, (tuberculosis) is hideous and just all over that prison, and there is a food crisis,” she said.
Within the next few days, prisoners are expected to receive the first of what is planned to be a steady flow of nutritious meals, that Krabacher arranged with the help of Feed the Hungry, other nonprofits and members of the Haitian government.
Krabacher learned of the crisis when she read a , which reported that 21 prisoners died at the penitentiary in January. “This is the worst rate of preventable deaths that I have encountered anywhere in the world,” Dr. John May, co-founder of Health Through Walls, a nonprofit that works to improve health conditions in the Caribbean and several African nations, told the AP.
Prisoners, most of them being held in prolonged pre-trial detention, defecate in plastic bags, sleep in hammocks suspended from the ceiling or squeeze four to a bunk, the AP reported.
Only those who receive a hammock from someone outside the prison have that luxury, Krabacher said. Many more sleep in shifts on the floor. The prisoners spend 22 hours a day locked in cells made for 20 men, but crowded with as many as 100.
Some have been incarcerated for up to nine years awaiting trial.
Rampant corruption among judges, prosecutors and lawyers, has created a market for bribes, contributing to the severe overcrowding, the AP reported.
Krabacher’s HaitiChildren cares for 128 orphans, about half of them disabled, and a small number of elderly in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world, according to the World Bank.
“This is completely out of our scope of work, but I have been working in Haiti for 24 years,” said Krabacher, who visits the Caribbean country monthly and has connections in the nonprofit world.
She contacted Feed the Hungry, a non-profit, evangelical Christian charity. “Two weeks ago we got a call from Susie, a text message, asking us to call,” said Stefan Radelich, president of Feed the Hungry. “She shared with us her experience visiting the prison.”
Love A Child, another nonprofit, contributed 23,000 meals, which will be distributed to prisoners.
“In May, we will be sending two 40-foot, ocean freight containers,” Radelich said. Feed The Hungry will continue to provide a shipment each month. “Our role is to make sure that the supply is there so they can keep going through the end of the year.”
The U.S. government has also been involved in the effort.
The government of Haiti has agreed to arrange acceptance of the shipments so they aren’t subject to customs fees that would normally be collected on the meals, Krabacher said.
“The food will be distributed with the help of families I have known in Haiti for 20 years,” she added.
