Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy

Renée Bergan and Mark Schuller's documentary on the status of women in Haiti was made before the January 2010 earthquake, yet it serves as a brutal reminder that the Caribbean nation had tumbled into ruin long before the Richter scale went wild. Narrated by Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat, Poto Mitan features interviews with five women who detail the social and economic misery they face every day. Viewers learn that the inability of the working class to pay school tuitions has kept many children uneducated, while a longstanding history of gender discrimination ensures that girls more often than boys lose out on schooling. Factories suffer from unsafe and unsanitary working conditions, and any attempts at unionizing are met with the abrupt firing of would-be labor advocates. Not surprisingly, housing is squalid, and the price of food is out of sync with living wages. Throughout the film, the women voice complaints that the Haitian government and select members of the elite have pocketed foreign aid while allowing the country to rot. On top of all that, the presence of United Nations peacekeepers in Port-au-Prince has not reduced the level of street violence—footage shows a shootout between the UN forces and unidentified gunman—although in an uplifting note, one of the women is leading a new grassroots campaign against violence, encouraging others to speak out. The message of Poto Mitan is depressingly clear: the world should have been paying attention to the chaos in Haiti long before the earthquake further destroyed its decrepit infrastructure. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)