First Name:
Babara
Last Name:
Dangler
Major Department:
Political Science
Thesis Director:
James Barnes
Date of Thesis:
Dec 2009
On January first in 1804 Haiti won its independence from France becoming the first black republic in the world and the first country to overthrow colonial rule in Latin America (Rotberg 289). In spite of this strong beginning, Haiti has had nothing but a tumultuous history, with few success stories. Insufficient public services, instability and lack of legitimacy because of corruption, poor health care, rampant poverty and extreme economic reliance on international benefactors, have made life miserable for the majority of the population. Today 80 percent of Haitian families exist in poverty ("Central American and Caribbean: Haiti") and 49 percent of those families fight to survive in extreme poverty (Verner). Also, no one know what the unemployment rate is because "more than two-thirds of the labor force do not have formal jobs" ("Central American and Caribbean: Haiti"). The average life expectancy is 60.78 years, which isn't horrible, But it's 23.58 years less than Macau, which has the highest life expectancy in the world. As of 2007, 2.2% of adult Haitians have HIV/AIDS; this nation has the 28th highest population living with AIDS in the world ("Central American and Caribbean: Haiti"). Other ways public services have failed the people are: "around 20 percent of children suffer malnutrition, nearly half the population has no health care and more than four-fifths have no clean drinking water" (Verner 2). Meanwhile, the education system is abysmal with an adult literacy rate of 52 percent ("Country Profile: the Republic)...