Standing up for Women and their Rights Seems Easy at First Glance, but has a Difficult Phase

Joint text creation by Eleine Jean-Pierre and translation by Moise Lena Jean Louis, Tinana

4 minutes read | originally published on March 26, 2021 at 3:11 p.m., modified on April 10, 2025 at 3:14 p.m.

The lawyer, a diplomat and a lawyer through a certification process, Novia Augustin is a Haitian woman with a widespread inspirational background. As a feminist and activist, she applies with enthusiasm and determination for women’s rights as vice president at Fedofed, a Haitian social structure. She is also the founding director of Refuge des Femmes d’Haïti, an organization that works for the most marginalized women, such as “sex workers, HIV-positive, victims of violence, bisexual, transsexual”, among others.

She is the daughter of Saint-Marcain, like herself. She was born and partially raised in Saint-Marc, a city located about a hundred kilometers from the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. She began her elementary formative schooling at Saint-Marc and then finished her university year in Port-Au-Prince.

Based on what she reported to us, at a very early age, she had always known her real goal in life and call to support the promotion of women in her culture as part of the Haiti culture. She has been a representative of them as a way to help embrace their security against any form of violence. “I think I was aware that I always knew I would be a feminist activist. I remember once when I was eight years old and witnessed something horrible in the family I grew up in and meant physical violence. Just thinking about it today, I realized it was one of the efforts to strive for this space for the work I do.” Says Augustin.

Within her organization Ref-Haïti, Augustin supports women through various experimental courses and teaches them how to cope independently. She works with partners and donors such as UNICEF, FOSREF, PNUD, ONUFEMMES, FAES, Food for the Poor, Initiative Gross, and Sie CCM-Haïti. Her courses include “safe sewing, financial education, and targeted support for reintegration into society.”

Between 2020 and 2021, the organization conducted around sixty training sessions and distributed energy packs and materials to enable women to launch startups. At the same time, the organization continued to raise awareness about the “2019 pandemic, HIV, and certain forms of violence against women.”

Augustin recently became a mother. One of her main motivations to combat the challenges women face. She demands that the Haitian justice system strengthen existing laws against violence towards women, because women have a right to a safe life. At the same time, she promotes a culture of resistance in her company against all forms of abuse to which women are exposed.

In January 2021, Novia Augustin received a Dofen Award for her commitment and dedication to women’s rights. That same year, she also received the MCFDF award, which represents an important link in further promoting women’s safety and well-being.