PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Living in a small blue tent at a sprawling camp for earthquake survivors, Venia Ellian says she sometimes looks down at her infant — his generous cheeks, tiny lips and small, dark eyes — and cries.
"The first time I looked into his eyes, it hurt," says Ellian, 22. "When I look at Richard, I remember the rape." Ellian was attacked two days after the Jan. 12 earthquake that left hundreds of thousands of Haitians homeless and living in camps to await the reconstruction of the shattered homes. She was dragged into an abandoned building where four men she did not know tied her up, beat her and raped her.
Afterward, Ellian staggered naked to a police station where she says an officer asked her why she hadn't screamed more during the attack, implying she hadn't done enough to stop the rape.
No one has been arrested in the case, and Ellian was forced to live in the camps after her father threw her out of the house when he saw that she was pregnant.
Rape was already a serious problem in Haiti even before the earthquake. The United Nations reported in 2008 that almost half of the girls and young women living in slums like Cité Soleil and Martissant had been raped...
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