Last Updated on May 17, 2020, 6:45 AM AST by Anthony Morris
At a training facility situated outside the Haitian capital, young female football players live under a coronavirus lockdown, and the atmosphere there is heavy after the allegations have been made that the head of the national sports federation had raped several teenage girls there.
However, at the academy which was once a ranch owned by the former strongman of Haiti, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the staff and the players are largely on the side of Yves Jean-Bart, and they call him a father figure.
Yvette Felix, a 38-year-old former national football team captain who since 2006, has worked as a coach, said that President Jean-Bart is like a father to everyone and he loves and respects everyone.
The claims arose after a report came from the side of The Guardian, and in the report, the alleged victims and their relatives had said that 73-year-old Jean-Bart had sexually assaulted or raped them over the span of the past five years.
Some of the alleged victims said that they had been pressured to keep quiet, told the British newspaper that at least two minors had been forced to have abortions in order to cover up the rapes.
The Haitian police have launched a probe into the allegations, and a judge has summoned several federation employees for answering the questions.
Two of the women’s advocacy groups, SOFA and Kay Fanm, have issued statements in support of the alleged victims.
However, at the Haitian Football Federation centre, which had been founded after the devastating earthquake of 2010, multiple people have said that they were shocked by the claims made against the President of the association.
A 12-year-old female player, who has been living at the facility since December said that the President treats them like his own children, she does not think that all that really happened and that she does not believe it.
In the broader sports community in the capital of Haiti, the view of Jean-Bart as a father figure spans generations.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
