Dwa Fanm is a community organization located in Brooklyn, New York. Dwa Fanm which translates into "Women's Rights" in Haitian Kreyol claims to work to end Domestic Violence for women.  Dwa Fanm's mission states that "DWA FANM is a human rights organization committed to Empowering Women and girls with the freedom to define and control their own lives." Their mission goes on to state that "Through grassroots organizing, advocacy, radio programs, school based workshops and direct services, Dwa Fanm works to end all forms of discrimination, violence and injustice against women and girls." Dwa Fanm claims that it takes pride in working against the injustices against women, however,  the very people who claim to be for the mission continue to violate the human rights of their employees.

 

     In the past five years, the administration at Dwa Fanm has violated the rights of over thirteen of their employees. These are the details of a few of the injustices and abuse that these women had to endure as employees at Dwa Fanm.:

 

-Employees were placed in the middle of a dispute between the board and the former administration and were subject to many put downs such as being told that they were "replaceable" and "simple minded".

- Employee health benefits were cut in March 2010 without notifying the employees of the loss of benefits.  Since March 2010 there was no benefit package available for the employees.

- Employees were placed in the position where they felt that their jobs were in jeopardy if they failed to work unpaid overtime. Even after many employees were reduced to part time they were expected to work on their off time and reprimanded for not performing agency work during their off-time.  One employee was unjustly fired for her failure to perform agency duties during her off-time.

- A Supervisor at the agency was demoted during her pregnancy for her inability to take on more responsibility due to the effect that the added stress was having on her pregnancy.  A condition that the administration was well aware of. 

 - Dwa Fanm failed to pay the appropriate amount of payroll taxes to the IRS for their employees even though the appropriate amounts were deducted from the employees pay.  This happened for both the 2009 and 2010 tax years and resulted in the IRS requesting payment from several employees. 

- Several employees have requested documentation to provide to the IRS in order to prove that they are not responsible for paying back payroll taxes that Dwa Fanm was responsible to pay.  For over 1 year Dwa Fanm has refused to honor their requests. 

- Dwa Fanm tried to force their staff attorneys to violate client confidentiality. Refusal by the attorneys resulted in their termination. 

- Several employees were targeted on a daily basis by a bombardment of intimidation tactics such as verbal abuse and constant threats of termination by supervisory staff.

- A former Executive Director was fired without due process or a fair hearing after finding evidence of mismanagement of funds as well as evidence of fraud and embezzlement of funds by a former employee.

- On numerous occasions Dwa Fanm failed to pay employees for their time worked.  Some employees were owed over two months of unpaid wages. 

- Since 2009 Employees were not given their W2 forms to file taxes within the required time set by the IRS. 

- Dwa Fanm failed to appropriately report earnings to the Department of Labor resulting in a former program coordinator not receiving the appropriate unemployment benefit amount.  Dwa Fanm failed to make the appropriate adjustments to correct this situation.

-  Dwa Fanm created a hostile work environment for several employees. Numerous employees were subject to constant ridicule and put down due to their religion, marital status, class status and sexual preference.

 -  Numerous employees experienced verbal abuse, intimidation and threats from the Board’s Chairperson throughout their employment.  Long term exposure to this hostile work environment lead to emotional and psychological strain to those employees. 

 

Despite the horrific workplace conditions, dedicated employees continued to provide quality services to the clients. We as former employees are writing to ask for your help in putting an end to the injustices that Dwa Fanm continues to put their employees through.  We are asking for your help with the following:

 

• -Stop additional funding to Dwa Fanm.

 

• -Demand that Dwa Fanm make the appropriate payroll tax payments to the IRS that are owed on behalf of the employees and former employees so that they will not be responsible to pay the fees to the IRS that were already deducted from their paychecks.

 

• -Demand that Dwa Fanm make the appropriate corrections to their reporting to Department of Labor so that former employees will receive the correct unemployment benefit that is owed to them.

 

• -Contact Council Members and demand that action be taken to prevent Dwa Fanm from victimizing more women.

 

 

Charles Barron

42

Brooklyn

Democrat

Erik Martin Dilan

37

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

Mathieu Eugene

40

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

 Lewis A. Fidler

46

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

Vincent J. Gentile

43

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

Sara M. Gonzalez

38

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

David G. Greenfield

44

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

Letitia James

35

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

Brad Lander

39

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

Stephen Levin

33

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

Darlene Mealy

41

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

Michael C. Nelson

48

Brooklyn

Democrat

  

Domenic M. Recchia, Jr.

47

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

Diana Reyna

34

Brooklyn

Democrat

  

Albert Vann

36

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

Jumaane D. Williams

45

Brooklyn

Democrat

 

 

 

Dwa Fanm can be contacted at:

 

30 3rd Ave 8th Floor Brooklyn NY 11217

 

718-222-6320

 

Executive Director: Nora Joseph

 

njoseph@dwafanm.org

 

 

 THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

MB

FP

KH