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| A couple ride on a boat toward Tortue island, in Port De Paix, Haiti. Tortue Island off Haiti’s north coast, is where migrant boats traditionally have been built and set sail jammed full of migrants. |
| Running On Empty Many Haitians Work To Secure One Meal A Day |
Special to The Haitian Times
PORT-AU-PRINCE — For many Haitians, a job is not about the ability to pay bills, manage family finances or save money. It simply supplies enough money for one hot meal a day.
Rachele Lotin, who sews T-shirts at a factory at Port-au-Prince industrial park, earns the minimum wage of 70 Haitian gourdes (about $1.80) a day. She spends it on her bus commute plus a meal at work of rice, beans, vegetable sauce and sometimes a small piece of meat.
"I pay a total of 30 gourdes for transport and buy a meal for 35 gourdes, which is the cheapest I can get. I can't even afford to buy myself a juice because all I have left is 5 gourdes," said Lotin, 45.
Lotin's story illustrates the impact of a food crisis that has aggravated problems in the poorest nation in the Americas. Sixty-six percent of Haitians live on less than $1 dollar a day and 47 percent are undernourished, according to the U.N. World Food Program.
Lotin, a widow and mother of five, said her children often go an entire day without food and she relies on money from a cousin in the United States to help feed them.
"I receive $50 once in a while from my cousin who has a lot of other relatives to support," she said, adding that for breakfast she might have coffee and a cheap snack in the evening to supplement the midday meal at work.
The country's unemployment rate is over 60 percent, but several Haitians interviewed said they work so they don't have to beg for help from relatives or friends. But some said having a job brings a new set of problems.
"I come to work because at least I know I will eat for the day, but it is a headache because others expect you to help them when they know you have a job," said Adonis Gerard, 43.
"If I was not working at all, I would not have received any such pressure from relatives and friends," he said. "Sometimes they are mad at you because they think you have and you don't want to give to them."
Even eating at work was hard, he said, knowing his three children might be hungry and wondering if he would bring food home.
Twenty-four percent of Haitian children are chronically malnourished, while for 9 percent, malnourishment is acute, the World Food Program said.
Haiti's government, under pressure from labor unions, recently proposed doubling the minimum wage to 150 gourdes a day (around $4) to expand workers' purchasing power. The business sector opposes the measure, which has yet to be approved by parliament.
It would increase unemployment and force some business to close, said Jean Robert Arguant, chairman of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
"We are ready to pay no more than 90 gourdes ($2.4) a day. ... Anything more would be prejudicial to the country's economy and cause significant job losses," he said.
"In a country where the unemployment rate is so high, it is more important to have more people working for a bit less than having a lot fewer with an increased salary."