Book Review: Gender and violence in Haiti: Women’s paths from victims to agents

• Author: Ben Brown
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567714547720
• Published date: 01 December 2014
• Date: 01 December 2014

412
International Criminal Justice Review 24(4)
Duramy, B. F. (2014).
Gender and violence in Haiti: Women’s paths from victims to agents. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
xii, 188 pp. $25.95 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-8135-6315-5
Reviewed by: Ben Brown, The University of Texas at Brownsville, Brownsville, TX, USA
DOI: 10.1177/1057567714547720
Duramy’s (2014) book, Gender and Violence in Haiti: Women’s Path from Victims to Agents, is not
easy to read. It is replete with accounts of nightmarish violence against women and descriptions of
the harsh conditions in some of the worst slums of one of the most poverty-stricken nations on the
planet. As though that were not enough, the concluding chapter describes the enhanced misery
wreaked upon the Haitian populace by the 2010 earthquake.
Duramy’s research is qualitative in nature. From 2006 to 2008, she made several trips to Haiti and
interviewed victims of violence, representatives of nongovernmental organizations, representatives of
government agencies, and academicians. The discussion of the methodology is of interest not because
the methodology was by any means rigorous, but because of the difficulties Duramy faced while con-
ducting the research. The study focused on residents of slums in Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haitien, and
Gonaives, but due to security concerns Duramy conducted the interviews in safe locations such as
a U.N. mission and a hotel rather than in the slums. Duramy’s candid...