By: Caribbean World News Friday March 19,

Meet `Gentile,` a Haitian woman who was recently grabbed by five men and taken into a nearby house in the congested Parc Jean Marie Vincent camp of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. There she was raped, forced to perform oral sex, and brutally beaten.

Gentile, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, is one of the apparent victims of a slew of sexual violence which is now affecting female earthquake survivors in Haiti, according to Human Rights Watch.

Liesl Gerntholtz, director of the Women`s Rights Division of HRW, said she met Gentile recently in an empty tent that had been left at the camp and she quietly described the vicious assault.

After she finally managed to escape, according to the report from Gerntholtz, Gentle was chased by the men who also beat her in the street. A man finally rescued her and took her to his home but later that morning, she returned to the streets, as she literally has nowhere else to go.

According to Gerntholtz, sexual and other violence against women in the aftermath of the earthquake is on the increase as women struggle to meet basic needs for food, water, shelter and hygiene.

Gerntholtz said that during the mission, they visited 15 of the largest camps for displaced Haitians, and documented four gang rapes in Parc Jean Marie Vincent camp alone.

`The camps are unsafe places, and many women live with strangers, having lost contact with family members and friends. Their access to food and water is compromised,` said the HRW director. `They bathe and wash children in public places. Although some latrines have been provided, there is no separation of facilities for women and men-and no lighting-so these are unsafe after dark. Three weeks after the quake, Parc Jean Marie Vincent camp had not received any food, contributing to an atmosphere of anger and anxiety. There were no police or U.N. forces patrolling. The camp is on open ground, allowing anyone to enter the camp and the shelters.`

Investigators for Human Rights Watch reported the first three gang rapes to UN officials. Then, two weeks later, on February 27, the 21-year-old mother was gang-raped. Additionally, there have been reports of the rape of a seven-year-old and a two-year-old child.

And an 18-year-old girl became another rape victim after losing her parents, grandmother, a sister and three cousins to the quake.

She was reportedly roaming the streets when a man approached her, promising her his wife would look after her but the man took her to a house, then left and came back with two men. The three raped her until she escaped.

Additionally, according to the Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development in Haiti, sex-for-food is not uncommon in the camps. `In particular, young girls have to negotiate sexually in order to get shelter from the rains and access to food aid,` said the Institute.

Alison Thompson, a volunteer medical coordinator for a Haitian relief group created by the actor Sean Penn.

`Women aren`t being protected,` she said. `So when the lights go down is when the rapes increase, and it`s happening daily in all the camps in Port-au-Prince.`

Haiti police chief Mario Andresol has blamed the attacks on the 7,000 prisoners who escaped even as information minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said last month, `We are aware of the problem, but it`s not a priority.`

However, the outlook for Haitian women survivors may not be all bleak. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has promised the camps will be `safe and secure.`

`We must protect these women and girls. If they are sexually abused and attacked and raped, that is totally unacceptable and intolerable and we must stop it,` he said Sunday during a visit to Haiti.