True Life Stories Reveal The Agony Of The Poor

In Pathologies of Power, Paul Farmer uses case studies to examine the social and economic rights struggle, as it relates to human health. A central theme of this book is that human right abuses are found, and best understood, from the perspective of the impoverished. In the chapter entitled “On Suffering and Structural Violence,” Paul Farmer shares a story of Acephie Joseph, a young Haitian woman, and her struggle and ultimate downfall as a result of being infected with AIDS. He, consequently, questions how large-scale social forces have become a part of the sickness, suffering, and degradation of the Haitian people. Paul Farmer believes that anthropology, sociology, history and other “resocializing” disciplines, should play important roles in fixing the deeper pathologies of power in order to protect human rights (Farmer 20). Therefore, anthropologists study both the individual experience and the larger social environment in order to understand how social pressures and events create distress and disease. Numbers and statistics can only do so much to persuade people to act accordingly and create change. Therefore by sharing personal accounts about true-life experiences, Paul Farmer hopes to initiate people to act accordingly.
Haiti, where the story takes place, is a country characterized by “extreme human suffering” and poverty. Individuals living in Haiti fight each day for food, water, and wood in order to survive the harsh living conditions. The life expectancy is less than 50 years in Haiti, and two out of every ten infants die before their first birthday. The leading causes of death among adults in Haiti are AIDS and tuberculosis, while the measles, tetanus, and diarrheal disease harm the children and undernourished.
In Acephie’s case, AIDS was the “bad illness” that took over her body. In Kay, a small town affected by the flood, a majority of the population was forced to move and become impoverished. When the flood took place, Acephie and her family specifically lost their home and most of their belongings, and crops. As a result, Acephie felt that it was her responsibility to help her family financially and began, at the age of 19, to help her mother carry produce to the markets. Because of Acephie’s beauty and elegance, many soldiers would pay close attention to her, specifically Captain Honorat. Despite Captain Honorat having a wife and children, he and Acephie had sexual relations for a month before he left her, as a result of falling sick with the fever.
By age 22, Acephie went to Port-au-Prince and found a job as a housekeeper. While she only made a measly $30 a month, Acephie still continually sent money back to her family and siblings. While away from home, Acephie began to be sexually active with a new man, Blanco Nerette, who had done well for his social standing and in fact had sufficient economic resources to be her “moun prensipal” or main man (Farmer 34). Yet Acephie soon had to leave her job, as a housekeeper, after discovering she was pregnant. After having a difficult pregnancy, Acephie had repeated infections and was eventually diagnosed with AIDS. When looking back on her sexual experiences Acephie said, “I never dreamed he would give me a bad illness, never! I looked around and saw how poor we all were, how the old people were finished…What would you have me do? It was a way out, that’s how I saw it” (Farmer 34). Her reaction is a common theme among AIDS victims in Haiti and around the world.
Many Haitian women of her era, believed that the only “way out” was to become involved with a man in hopes that they could support her financially. Females, however, endure the most common domestic violence and rape crimes worldwide. Statistically one in four women have been the victim of rape, or been physically battered. Today, the world’s poor are the primary victims of structural violence due to the distinct barrier between the rich and poor. Thus, those individuals in poverty are forced to die in silence because the pain of the poor does not directly affect the upper classes (Farmer 50).
While stories like Acephie Joseph and Chouchou Louis are horrifying and disturbing, millions of people in Haiti are living in similar conditions. In fact, many may have a similar fate as a result of being members of the bottom social class in Haiti’s non-democratic society. Many Haitian young women during Acephie’s lifetime fled to Port-au-Prince in an attempt to escape poverty and seek financial security. However, many were unsuccessful and as a result poverty forced them into unfavorable marriages and causal sexual activity. An important thing to realize though is how true life stories tell more than just statistics and figures. The stories of these individuals suffering and the magnitude of their pain, move readers, like myself, to push for equality and human rights for all.