Jamaica’s Foreign Affairs Minister joins CARICOM delegation to Haiti, speaks to women and girls as easy targets 

By Deandrea Hamilton

Editor

#Jamaica, March 9, 2023 – Andrew Holness, the Prime Minister of Jamaica alongside Keith Bell, The Bahamas’ Minister of Immigration on Monday February 27th, led what is being described as an official delegation into the Republic of Haiti; the trip which also included Bahamas National Security Minister, Wayne Munroe took place almost immediately following the 44th Regular Meeting of CARICOM held February 15-17.  

At the close of the Regular Meeting, staged in Nassau, Bahamas  it was decided that the CARICOM countries would reconvene on the situation in Haiti in three weeks.

Magnetic Media spoke with Jamaica’s Camina Johnson Smith, the Minister of Foreign Affairs who attended the CARICOM meeting and joined her Prime Minister in the exploratory mission to the republic; our questions to Minister Johson-Smith centered largely on the most vulnerable caught in the unrest.

She said, “I don’t think anyone can help but be moved by the plight of people being, you know, the stories of gender-based violence, of kidnappings, of murder. These are things that affect people who are most vulnerable, who have the least protection, who don’t have access to a microphone and who don’t have access to a call or an email to, you know, a head of government. So, we have to be responsible and  it means we have to move from talk to action.”

Johnson-Smith perfectly summed up the issue of women and girls being easy targets for violence, a common and unfortunate truth for Haiti.