In a city ruled by bands, a young rapist raises baby

Attention: This story contains stories of rape and other violence that readers can find disturbing.

Helen was 17 years old when a gang attacked her neighborhood in the capital of Haiti, Port-O-Prenes.

She caresses her baby a daughter, asleep in her lap as she describes how armed men abducted her as she tried to run and held her for more than two months.

“They raped me and beat me every day. Several different men. I didn’t even know their names, they were masked,” says the young woman whose name we changed to protect her identity. “Some of the things they did to me are too painful to share with you.”

“I declined, they were constantly telling me that I had to abort pregnancy and said” no. “This baby may be the only thing I ever have.”

She managed to escape as the gang was caught in the fight to maintain territory. Now 19 years old, she spent the last year raising her daughter in a safe house in the city suburb.

The safe house is home to at least 30 girls and young women who sleep in two -storey beds in colored rooms.

Helen is the oldest survivor of rape here. The youth is only 12 years old. Playing and dancing on the balcony in a blue regiment dress, it looks much younger than its age suffering from malnutrition in the past. The staff tells us that it has been raped many times over.

Rape and other sexual abuse are increasing in Haiti as armed gangs are expanding their control in Port-O-Proons and beyond.

The Caribbean islands was absorbed in a wave of abuse of bands after the 2021 murder of then President Jovel Moise.

It is difficult to measure the scale of sexual abuse. The Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) Medical Charity manages a clinic in the central port-prens for women who have experienced sexual abuse. The data they have shared exclusively with the BBC shows that the number of patients has almost tripled since 2021.

Banks are known for kneading in neighborhoods and killing dozens of people. MSF says numerous rapes of bands of women and girls are often part of these large -scale attacks. It is clear from the accounts of the survivors that gangs use rape to terrorize and subordinate entire communities.

The BBC has caused the leaders of gangs for killings and rapes. Earlier, one told us that they did not control the actions of their members and believe that they had a “obligation” to fight the state. Another said “When we fight, we are possessed – we are no longer human.”

“Patients have started sharing many, very difficult stories since 2021,” says Diana Manila Ari, the head of the MSF mission in Haiti.

“The survivors talk about two or four or seven, or up to 20 aggressors,” she says, adding that more women now say that they have been threatened with weapons or demolished unconscious.

Women also report more often that their attackers are under 18, she adds.

At a center for dropping out in another part of the city, four women from the late 20s to the 70’s were attacked by their children and spouses.

“Our neighborhood was attacked. I returned home just to find my mother, my father, my sister, everyone was killed. They were killed and then they burned the house with them inside,” says a woman.

After studying her devastated home, she would leave the neighborhood when she came across members of the gang. “They raped my six-year-old with them. And they raped,” she continues. “Then they killed my younger brother before us.”

“Every time my daughter looks at me, she’s sad and crying.”

Other women tell attacks that follow a similar model – murder, rape and arson.

Sexual violence is just one element of the crisis that has swallowed Haiti. UN agencies say more than one -tenth of the population – 1.3 million people – fled their homes and half of the population faces a sharp hunger.

Haiti had no elected leadership after the Mois murder. The transitional presidential council and a series of prime ministers has appointed are tasked with governing the country and organizing elections.

The rival bands have formed an alliance, turning their weapons on the Haitian state, not one another.

Since we last visited December, the situation has deteriorated. Hundreds of thousands of more people have been displaced. More than 4,000 people were killed in the first half of 2025, compared to 5,400 throughout 2024, according to the UN.

Gangs are thought to have increased their control from 85% to 90% of the capital, seizing key neighborhoods, trade routes and public infrastructure, despite the efforts of Kenyan security power.

We join the international force while they patrol the band controlled, but in minutes one of the tires of their armored vehicle has been fired and the operation ends.

The members of the force rarely leave their armored vehicles. Experts say gangs continue to acquire powerful weapons and maintain upper hand.

In recent months, the Haitian authorities have concluded mercenaries to support the fight against back control.

A source within the Haiti Security Force told the BBC that private military companies, including one from the United States, are working on the spot and using drones to attack band leaders.

He showed us footage of drones, which he says he is a leader of your band Laplari, which is aimed at explosion. He says Laplari was left in critical condition, although the BBC failed to confirm this.

But the fear of the gangs remains around the city. In many neighborhoods, vigilant groups take security in their own hands, further increasing the number of young men with weapons on the streets.

“We will not let them (the gangs) come here and kill us – to steal everything we have, to burn cars, to burn houses, to kill children,” says a man using the name “Mike”.

He says he operates a group at Croix-Des-Prés, a lively market area close to the band controlled.

As the firing rings in the distance, no one is trembling. The people here are used to him.

He says that gangs pay young boys to join, and create checkpoints during which they require money from the residents who pass.

“Of course, everyone is afraid,” he tells us. “We feel ourselves trying to protect women and children. While gangs continue to spread, we know that our area may be next.”

Humanitarian agencies say that the situation is getting worse and women are among the most affected, many of which face the double trauma of sexual abuse and displacement.

Lola Castro, the Regional Director of the UN World Food Program, says Port-O-Prem “is the worst place in the world to be a woman.”

The women here will also probably feel the impact of abbreviations on humanitarian aid programs, she adds.

Haiti has long been one of the largest recipients of funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which President Donald Trump has reduced by calling it “wasteful.”

When we visited in June, Ms. Castro said the WFP was distributing its latest reserves of US-funded food assistance.

Providing food protects women, she explained, because it saves them from the need to be out the streets, begging or looking for food.

Humanitarian workers here also fear that the cuts may soon influence the support for victims of violence in places such as the Safe House where Helen lives.

And MSF’s Manilla Arroyo says that contraception funding has also been reduced: “Many of our patients already have children. Many of them are under 18 years of age with children. The risk of pregnancy is many, many new challenges for them.”

Helen and other women in the safe house often sit and talk together on a balcony who looks through the port-prens, but many are afraid of leaving the security of his walls too much.

She does not know how I will support my little daughter until she grows up.

“I always dreamed of going to school, learning and doing something of myself,” she says. “I always knew that I would have children, they just weren’t this young.”