Chaos eases as food lines focus on women

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The 79-year-old woman with a 55-pound bag of rice perched on her head gingerly descended concrete steps Sunday and passed it off to her daughter-in-law — who quickly disappeared behind the faded leopard-print sheets that are the walls of their makeshift home on the crowded turf of Haiti’s National Stadium.

That personal victory for Rosedithe Menelas and her hungry family was a leap forward as well for the United Nations and aid groups that have struggled to help 2 million people who need food aid after the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Under a new targeted approach to aid, Menelas and thousands of other women across Haiti’s capital no longer have to battle with men at food handouts that in recent days have been chaotic and dangerous.

U.N. officials say they are still far short of reaching all of the quake victims estimated to need food.

The U.N. World Food Program and its partners, including World Vision, borrowed an approach that has worked in other disaster zones. The agencies fanned out across Port-au-Prince, distributing coupons to be redeemed for bags of rice at 16 sites. The coupons were given mainly to women, the elderly and the disabled.

Men could redeem coupons for women who were busy taking care of children or who otherwise could not make it.

“Our experience around the world is that food is more likely to be equitably shared in the household if it is given to women,” WFP spokesman Marcus Prior said.

Officials targeted women because they are primary caregivers in most households and are less likely to be aggressive in aid lines.

Many Haitians agreed.

Bags of rice will be given out daily for the next two weeks to hold the city until longer-term food efforts can take hold. Workers are handing out 1,700 rations daily at each location. Each bag is intended to help feed a family of six for two weeks with about half the calories they need each day.

Also Sunday, the White House said it was resuming the military airlift of critically injured earthquake victims, having received assurances that additional medical capacity exists in U.S. hospitals. The flights had stopped four days earlier, worrying doctors in Haiti who said hundreds would die without specialized care. Since then, relief groups were forced to use expensive private jets.

The Boston-based aid group Partners in Health arranged for one such plane Sunday to fly a 5-year-old tetanus victim, a 14-month-old boy with pneumonia and a baby boy with third-degree burns to Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.

The White House said the airlift would resume in hours. “Patients are being identified for transfer, doctors are making sure that it is safe for them to fly, and we are preparing specific in-flight pediatric care aboard the aircraft where needed,” spokesman Tommy Vietor said.