In a city ruled by gangs, young rape survivor raises baby she was told to abort

Warning: This story contains accounts of rape and other violence that may find readers sad.

Helen was seventeen years old when she attacked her neighborhood gang in the Hayiti capital, Port or Prince.

She was hitting her infant daughter, asleep in her lap, while she was describing how armed men kidnapped her as she was trying to escape, and grabbed her for more than two months.

“You raped me and beat me every day. Many different men. I didn’t even know their names, they were masked,” says the young woman who changed her to protect her identity. “Some of the things they did to me is very painful to share with you.”

“They are pregnant, and they kept telling me that I should thwart the pregnancy and say” no. “This child could be the only one who has at all.”

She managed to escape while the gang had fallen into the fighting in order to maintain lands. Now 19, she spent last year raising her daughter at a safe house in a city’s suburb.

A safe house is home to no less than 30 girls and young women sleeping in a two -bunk family in colored paint rooms.

Helen is the oldest survivor of rape here. The youngest is only 12. Playing and dancing on the balcony in the blue polka dress, looks much younger than her life, after she has suffered from malnutrition in the past. The employees told us that she was raped several times.

Rape and other sexual violence rises in Haiti, where armed gangs expand their control via Port or Prince.

The Caribbean island is flooded in a wave of gang violence since the assassination in 2021 from the then President, Juvenile Moise.

It is difficult to measure the size of sexual violence. MEDECINS MEDECINS MEDECINS MEDECINS (MSF) runs a clinic in the center of Port or Prince for women who had sexual assault. The data you have shared exclusively with the BBC shows that patients have doubled almost three times since 2021.

Gangs are famous for assembling them in the neighborhoods and killing dozens of people. Doctors Without Borders says that the rape of multiple gangs of women and girls is often part of these large -scale attacks. Among the stories of survivors, it is clear that gangs use rape to terrorize and subjugate entire societies.

The BBC has challenged gang leaders about the accounts of killings and rape. One of them previously told us that they did not control the actions of their members and believe they have a “duty” to fight the state. Another said, “When we fight, we have – we are no longer human.”

“Patients have started to share very difficult stories since 2021,” says Diana Manila Aroyo, head of the MSF mission in Haiti.

“The survivors talk about two, four, or seven, or up to 20 of the aggressors,” she says, adding that more women say they are now threatened with weapons or beaten consciousness.

She adds that women also mention that the attackers are less than 18 years old.

At a drop center in another part of the city, four women-ranging from the ages of the late twenties to 70-describe to be attacked in front of their children and their husbands.

One of the women says: “He was attacked at the time, and I just went home to find my mother, my father and my sister, and all of them were killed. They killed them and then burned the house with them.”

After wiping her destroyed house, she was about to leave the neighborhood when she faced the gang members. “They raped me-six years old with me. They also raped it.” “Then they killed my younger brother in front of us.”

“When my daughter looks at me, she is sad and cries.”

Other women attribute attacks that follow a similar pattern – killing, rape and burning.

Sexual violence is just one element of the crisis that was overwhelmed Haiti. UN agencies say more than ten populations – 1.3 million people – have fled their homes, and half of the population faces acute hunger.

Haiti had not had an elected leadership since the assassination of Moss. A transitional presidential council is assigned a series of prime ministers who appointed them to manage the country and organize elections.

The competing gangs formed an alliance, as they turned their weapons on the Halet state instead of each other.

Since the last time we visited in December, the situation has deteriorated. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. More than 4000 people were killed in the first half of 2025, compared to 5400 in 2024, according to the United Nations.

It is estimated that the gangs have increased their control from 85 % to 90 % of the capital, seized major neighborhoods, trade and public infrastructure, despite the efforts made by a security force led by the Kenyans, unaccounted.

We join the international force while they are patrolling in a gang -controlled area, but within minutes, one of the tires is launched on their armored vehicle and the operation ends.

Power members rarely leave their armored cars. Experts say the gangs continue to obtain strong weapons and keep the upper hand.

In recent months, the Haiti authorities have contracted mercenaries to help in controlling back.

A source inside the Haiti BBC told the private military companies, including one of the United States, operating on the ground, and using drones to attack gang leaders.

He explained to us the drones that he says is for a gang commander, T Labli, who is targeting an explosion. Ti Lapli says it was left in critical condition, although the BBC was unable to confirm this.

But throughout the city, fear of gangs remains. In many neighborhoods, Vigilante groups take security in their hands, which increases the numbers of young weapons in the streets.

“We will not allow them [the gangs] Come here and kill us – stealing everything we have, burning cars, burning homes, killing children, “says a man who uses the name” Mike “.

He says he works with a group in Croix-DES-PRIS, a noisy market area near a gang-controlled area.

While the fire rings the distance, no one is floundering. People here are used to that.

He says that gangs pay young children to join and prepare checkpoints as they ask for money from residents.

“Of course everyone is afraid,” tells us. “We feel an attempt to protect women and children. While gangs continue to spread, we know that our region may be the next.”

Humanitarian agencies say the situation is deteriorating and women are among the most difficult blow, as many of them face the dual shock of sexual violence and displacement.

“It is the worst place in the world to be a woman,” says Lula Castro, regional director of the United Nations World Food Program.

She adds that women here are likely to feel the impact of discounts on humanitarian aid programs.

Haiti has always been one of the largest beneficiaries of funding from the United States Agency for International Development (the United States Agency for International Development), which was reduced by President Donald Trump, and its double “waste”.

When we visited in June, Ms. Castro said that the World Food Program was distributing his recent stocks of US -funded food aid.

She explained that providing food protects women, because they are forced from having to go out in the begging streets or search for food.

Human workers here also fear that the cuts will affect the support of victims of violence in places such as the safe house in which Helen lives.

“Many patients have children already children. Many of them are less than 18 years old with children. The risk of pregnancy is many new challenges for them.”

Helen and other women often sit at a safe home and chat together on a balcony looking via Port-UU-PRINCE, but many of them fear that they will leave the security of its walls.

She does not know how she will support her young daughter as she grows up.

“I always dreamed of going to school, learning and making something of myself,” she says. “I always knew that I had children, not this young man.”