Dwa Fanm (meaning "Women's Rights" in Haitian Creole) is a women's advocacy organization. It was created in 1999 when a group of eight Haitian and American women from diverse socio-economic and political backgrounds met to discuss the state of women's rights in Haiti and in Haitian immigrant communities in the United States. Dwa Fanm is committed to the eradication of all forms of discrimination, injustice and violence against Haitian women and girls. It seeks to empower Haitian women and girls in the United States, Haiti and elsewhere, so that they may live in society and within the many Haitian immigrant communities as equal agents and participants in all aspects of their lives. Dwa Fanm's founding members are now its Board of Directors and Advisory Board. Dwa Fanm is anchored in Brooklyn, home of the largest Haitian diaspora community in the United States.

More than half the estimated 500,000 Haitian immigrants settled in the New York area are women. We come from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, but all have been reared in a culture where women still struggle for their basic human rights, for respect, for appreciation, for equality. Our experiences in working to empower Haitian women have shown us that the view that women are inferior still abounds within the Haitian immigrant community. Because issues like women's sexuality, abuse, rights and domestic violence are considered taboo, important problems affecting women and girls need to be addressed. Our responses need to empower these women and girls. Therefore, Dwa Fanm implements programs to address the social and psychological factors that produce and sustain women's problems as individuals, within their families and within society. Dwa Fanm strives not only to educate individuals and families in the community, but also to raise awareness within other organizations and institutions in our communities, so that all our efforts reflect a concern for gender issues and women's rights.

Dwa Fanm received a Union Square Award in December 2001 (Visit http://www.fcny.org/unionsquareawards/usqhtml/about.cfm for the Union Square Award/2001 recipients).
Dwa Fanm's work has also been featured in local Haitian and American radio announcements and Brooklyn newspapers.

From the Founding Members

Dwa Fanm members share a commitment to women's rights as well as to social and legal equality, justice, peace and democracy. We envision a world where women fully and equally participate in processes that favor their well-being and economic independence, where they have the freedom to define their lives and where all girls can develop to their full potential. We oppose all forms of discrimination and exclusion due to sex, age, color, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, marital or parental status, physical ability, social class and economic status.

We support the right of women to fight exploitation and poverty. We believe women have the right to control their own bodies. We support women's right to have children and not to have children, to resist and denounce rape and incest, to marry whom they want to or not to marry. All women have value independent of their relationship to a man and deserve the respect of society. This is what some of us define as feminism. Dwa Fanm is committed to improving Haitian women's lives. We work to develop programs that empower women and girls through advocacy, consciousness and self-esteem raising, education, counseling, leadership training, mentoring, research and documentation.

Dwa Fanm aims to be an organization to represent Haitian women in all of their diversity and its membership should reflect this. In our practice, in our relationships and our interactions, we value honesty, solidarity and integrity. We strive for racial and economic justice and give priority to poor and exploited women. We combat all forms of violence including rape, incest, sexual abuse, and battering, stalking, harassment, and genital mutilation. Dwa Fanm should be a place of learning about gender, a place of nurturing, a place where we can learn to bridge differences of class, sexual orientation and generation. It should promote women and girls' self-esteem and teach how to undermine patriarchal, sexist and ageist practices.