LEGAL FRAMEWORK

The constitution provides for the free exercise of all religions. Under the constitution, the BOW’s primary responsibilities are to register religious and missionary organizations, certify the credentials of clergy of all denominations, and authorize their operations in the country. The law also stipulates that the BOW encourage tolerance and arbitrate conflicts within and between religious groups.

Registering religious organizations and clergy offers certain benefits, but there are no penalties for noncompliance. Benefits for registered religious organizations may include tax-exempt status, exemption from import duties on church-related items, protected class standing in legal disputes, and eligibility to receive public land to build schools. To obtain this status, a religious group must submit information on its leaders’ qualifications, a membership directory, a list of the group’s social projects, and annual activity reports to the BOW. Completion of the separate clergy registration process also confers certain benefits, namely legal authority to conduct civil ceremonies, such as marriages and baptisms, following an oath-taking ceremony organized by the Ministry of Justice. To obtain registered clergy status, the individual sponsored by a registered religious entity must submit approximately 10 documents. The required documentation package includes proof of completion for both secondary school and university or seminary-level religious studies, as well as a police certificate confirming no criminal record and no outstanding warrants.

A concordat between the government and the Holy See signed in 1860 formalizes the relationship between the state and the Catholic Church and regulates the Catholic Church’s structure within the state. The concordat accords the government some say in Catholic Church leadership, including providing the government the right of consent over the appointment of archbishops and bishops. The government has not exercised this right in recent years. The concordat also affords privileges to the Catholic Church, including state protection and financial support such as monthly stipends for some priests.

Foreign missionaries operating in the country are subject to the same legal and administrative requirements as their domestic counterparts.

The country is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

GOVERNMENT PRACTICES

While religious leaders representing the Catholic, Protestant, evangelical Christian, Muslim, Vodou, and Jewish communities continued to assert the government did not restrict their religious freedom, many religious leaders said the government’s failure to maintain security and order hampered their communities’ abilities to practice their religions freely. On April 7, local news site Vant Bef Info published an editorial condemning what it called government complicity in the continuing insecurity and economic downturn, which editors said prevented citizens from celebrating Easter traditions. In March, the Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince called on authorities to protect worshippers and places of worship after armed men broke into a church during Mass, kidnapping several worshippers and leaving numerous others with serious injuries. On September 15, the Catholic Haitian Conference of Religious released a letter denouncing the “indifference of political leaders” in the face of “an abandoned people… seeking nothing more than to live in dignity and peace.” One Catholic priest working in Cite Soleil said he believed continuing gang violence across the capital was a “serious impediment” to the free practice of all religion, “not just for Catholics or Christians.”

The High Transition Council (HCT), a government body designed to guide the government through the political crisis following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021, included a representative of the religious sector. On January 17, the Council of Ministers appointed Pastor Calixte Fleuridor, president of the Protestant Federation of Haiti, to serve on the HCT. Non-Protestant religious groups said they regretted there was not broader religious representation, although some Christian leaders agreed with Fleuridor’s selection. Some Protestant leaders called for Fleuridor to step down as president of the Protestant Federation and to replace him with someone who could “more effectively and broadly” represent the religious sector; as of year’s end, he had not done so. The Provisional Electoral Council, the body that governs elections, had not been formed by year’s end, but it was also expected to include members representing both Christian and Vodou groups.

On November 3, Pastor Clement Joseph, former RFP secretary general and leader of the Social Mission of Haitian Churches, a group of 14 Protestant churches, said he believed the security situation and the high level of impunity in the country “made any religious freedom impossible.” “The people have been totally abandoned by their government,” he said. “To have faith and freedom of religion, you must first have basic liberty. The people do not have even that.”

On November 2, Pastor Jean Bilda Robert, the president of the Council of Evangelical Churches of Haiti, emphasized that, while the government had not infringed on any individual religious rights or limited the degree to which citizens could practice their religion, the sociocultural situation more broadly, including high levels of violence and impunity, prevented many persons from freely practicing their faith.

The 2022 allegations that the Episcopal Church of Haiti was involved in the illegal importation of weapons continued to be a focus for authorities. On October 3, the chief prosecutor of Port-au-Prince dismissed charges against two priests indicted in the case but referred others to a criminal court for further proceedings. On September 22, the Episcopal Church of Haiti established an oversight body, whose six members would help provide greater control over church operations and demonstrate the church’s commitment to justice.

The 1860 concordat between the government and the Holy See continued to be a major subject of debate among religious leaders during the year. A Catholic leader said the Catholic Church adhered to the concordat because it was legally bound to do so under the country’s legal system, and it had a strong historical precedent. The president of the National Council of Haitian Muslims said he did not believe the concordat affected Muslims’ freedom of religion. Several other non-Catholic religious leaders, however, raised concerns regarding the concordat. One Protestant leader said it was proof of “unequal treatment” between the Catholic Church and other faiths, which put other religious groups at a comparative disadvantage. Vodou leaders said it reflected longstanding government and societal preference for the Catholic Church over other religions, as well as a major piece of a longstanding history of discrimination and persecution against Vodouists.

Vodou leaders continued to say that while continuing education and awareness campaigns across the country made them hopeful for the future, prejudice against them, especially in rural areas, still lingered and often made Vodouists fearful to practice openly. A representative of the National Confederation of Haitian Vodou stated that a majority of residents in rural areas were Vodouists, but they chose to practice their customs indirectly through medicine, art, and music. Vodou leaders said the government could do more to combat continuing societal discrimination by encouraging acceptance of, and education about, Vodou and Vodouists.

Some Protestant religious leaders continued to advocate increased government regulation of religious groups, in particular, following a march led by Pastor Zidor in August to protest gang violence, during which gang members killed, tortured, or kidnapped dozens of parishioners. After the incident, citizens took to social media to condemn the “uneducated” and “irresponsible” nature of Zidor’s actions as leader of his church and called on the government to investigate him and revoke his license. On August 29, authorities opened criminal proceedings against Zidor and closed his church.

The BOW said it continued to work with less established religious groups to facilitate their registrations while defending its rigorous registration process, although it said continuing insecurity presented serious challenges to reaching out to religious groups across the capital. As of December 31, the BOW reported that no new religious groups had registered during the year. BOW Director General Evans Souffrant said he believed there were no serious issues with religious discrimination in the country, and outreach to all faiths remained a priority for the BOW. According to the BOW, nationwide insecurity also remained a significant hindrance to its efforts to register religious leaders during the year. Sunni and Shia Muslim groups had not completed the procedures for registration and remained unregistered at year’s end. According to the BOW, despite the benefits of registering, many religious groups and leaders continued to choose to remain unregistered to avoid government oversight. Religious minorities said they generally disagreed with this assessment or suggested it was an oversimplification.

According to a Vodou leader, in contrast with its Catholic and Protestant counterparts, the decentralized Vodou community did not easily fit into the government’s criteria for institutional registration, which emphasizes a hierarchical leadership structure. Vodou leaders also said they believed this nonhierarchical structure made it more difficult for Vodouists to gain representation in other government bodies, such as the Provisional Electoral Council or the High Transition Council. Following the 2022 death of Euvonie Georges Auguste, a manbo (female Vodou priest) who had led the National Confederation of Haitian Vodou for many years, Jackson Pierre Louis was appointed by confederation leadership early in the year as her interim replacement.

According to 2021 BOW statistics, the most recent available, there were 9,195 certified Protestant pastors, 704 certified Catholic priests, and two certified Vodou clergy at the end of 2021, representing no change from 2020. By year’s end, the government had not certified any Sunni, Shia, or Ahmadiyya Muslim imams.

According to the World Bank, approximately 75 percent of total primary school enrollment and 82 percent of total secondary school enrollment in the country was in private, usually religious, schools. The Ministry of Education (MOE) stated that Catholic schools accounted for 15 percent of all schools in the education system (16 percent of total enrollment) and public schools accounted for 12 percent. The remaining 73 percent of schools were private institutions either run by Protestant churches (of a wide variety of denominations), secular for-profit, or secular nonprofit organizations. Although there were no available official statistics, the majority of these were private Protestant institutions, according to the BOW. The significant expansion of private Protestant institutions was initiated and facilitated in large part by the Jean-Claude Duvalier administration’s national education campaign during the 1970s and 1980s, which required missionaries to build an affiliated school with the construction of any church. According to Imam Mathurin, the Muslim community had three schools located in the metropolitan Port-au-Prince area, none of which received MOE funding. One of the schools operated in a gang-controlled area, and as a result, he said it was not open full-time.

During the 2022-23 school year, the MOE did not disburse funding to any religious schools, according to Catholic and Protestant leaders. In 2020, the government signed a three-year agreement with the Catholic Church calling for annual public financial support for Catholic schools, especially those in vulnerable areas, as identified jointly by political and civil society leaders. As of year’s end, there was no announcement regarding funding under this agreement.