Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for being here today.
When talking about violence against women and violence against women and children, aspects affecting that certainly can be the lack of housing, the lack of food, and of course the lack of jobs for the family to be engaged in.
Dealing with those three issues, I see from the report from the Red Cross that some 7,500 homes have been developed or are expected to be developed in the Jacmel and Leogane area at a cost of some $43,300,000. If we work that out for the approximately one million who are without housing or have been without housing, and estimate 10 persons per house--and these are very modest houses--it would come out to some $5.5 billion to supply that housing. Given that this housing is virtually plywood boxes, am I correct with my math here that the cost of these plywood boxes is $5,500 each--for a plywood box?
The other aspect concerns the problems with land assembly and utilization of land. For legal ownership of land, I can understand that is an immense problem. But is it not possible to relegate some property that can be, at least temporarily, leased or used for a 10-year period, or whatever, so we can get on with it and put these houses on the land? Has that been looked at?
My second question deals with food and security. We're aware of the deforestation throughout the country. We're aware that it was a very serious problem before the earthquake. What has been done since then, and what is the status? Is it still a negative? Are they still importing food to feed people? For a while they were importing rice, when at one time they were a major supplier of rice throughout the region. Would you comment on what has been done on food and security? Those are certainly two aspects that affect marital breakdown and family violence and other social issues.