According to the UN, 50 per cent of young women in the violent shantytowns of Haiti have been raped or sexually assaulted. Of the handful of victims who seek justice, a third are under 13.

These figures compare with those that emerge from the wars in Congo and Darfur - but this is not a country at war. Haiti is the poorest nation in the Americas, but it has a functioning democratic government, courts, police and a free press, all assisted by a three-year-old United Nations stabilisation mission that has been widely hailed as a success.

If the UN's figures are correct, there could be some 80,000 young women in Cité Soleil - a suburb smaller than Croydon - who have been sexually assaulted. What could turn a population to such voracious and cruel abuse of itself?