UN: Child trafficking by gangs putting Haiti’s future at risk

There has been an “alarm­ing in­crease” in the num­ber of chil­dren be­ing re­cruit­ed in­to gangs in Haiti with “dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences” for chil­dren, fam­i­lies and so­ci­ety, the Unit­ed Na­tions re­port­ed on Fri­day.

It said that the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try is in the grip of a deep­en­ing se­cu­ri­ty, hu­man­i­tar­i­an and gov­er­nance cri­sis and that armed gangs con­trol large swathes of the cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince and be­yond, dis­plac­ing fam­i­lies and re­strict­ing ac­cess to schools, health­care and ba­sic ser­vices.

Pover­ty is wors­en­ing for the most vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies, and chil­dren are in­creas­ing­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to gang re­cruit­ment, in or­der to earn mon­ey.

The UN said ser­vices to pro­tect chil­dren are over­stretched or ab­sent, leav­ing mi­nors at risk in neigh­bour­hoods where gangs ex­ert con­trol.

At least 26 gangs, with names like 103 Zom­bies, Vil­lage de Dieu, Tokyo and Kraze Barye, op­er­ate in Port-au-Prince and sur­round­ing ar­eas. They con­trol ter­ri­to­ry, vi­o­lent­ly ex­tort com­mu­ni­ties and fight the be­lea­guered Hait­ian se­cu­ri­ty forces for dom­i­nance.

As clash­es in­ten­si­fy, the gangs re­ly on a steady stream of re­cruits, in­clud­ing chil­dren, to main­tain con­trol.

“They (gang mem­bers) gave me cig­a­rettes and left­over co­caine. I be­came heav­i­ly ad­dict­ed. Af­ter us­ing co­caine, I no longer be­haved like a nor­mal per­son. I felt like I was in an­oth­er world and felt ready to kill any­one,” said a 10-year-old boy named Pierre.

The UN said chil­dren are viewed as eas­i­er to ma­nip­u­late and less like­ly to draw sus­pi­cion and that re­cruit­ment is no longer spo­radic. In many ar­eas, it is sys­tem­at­ic.

Around 45 per cent of Haiti’s pop­u­la­tion is un­der 18 years old.

Many chil­dren are pushed by hunger, lack of school­ing and eco­nom­ic des­per­a­tion to join gangs. Oth­ers are forcibly re­cruit­ed or threat­ened.

“I grew up in a poor neigh­bour­hood where gangs con­trolled every­thing. I saw armed men in the streets all the time. Some were well-dressed, had nice cars, and were sur­round­ed by women,” 16-year-old Joseph re­count­ed.

In gang-con­trolled neigh­bour­hoods, the most­ly armed mem­bers can ap­pear to of­fer pro­tec­tion, be­long­ing or in­come where the State of­fers none.

Dis­place­ment and fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion in­crease the like­li­hood of chil­dren join­ing gangs.

Chil­dren serve mul­ti­ple func­tions. They act as look­outs, mes­sen­gers and in­for­mants, roles that ex­ploit their age and their abil­i­ty to re­main in­con­spic­u­ous. Many are al­so in­volved di­rect­ly in armed con­fronta­tions, check­points and kid­nap­pings for ran­som. One child re­port­ed earn­ing US$1000 a week in a coun­try where many live be­low the pover­ty line.

Girls face height­ened risks, in­clud­ing sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion, rape and forced re­la­tion­ships with gang mem­bers.

“Mem­bers of two al­lied gangs forced me to have sex­u­al re­la­tion­ships with sev­er­al of them on at least six oc­ca­sions. These gangs con­trol the area where I lived and cre­at­ed an at­mos­phere of fear,” a girl named Ju­lia re­vealed.

The UN said re­cruit­ed chil­dren face vi­o­lence, trau­ma and abuse. Their ed­u­ca­tion is dis­rupt­ed and the long-term psy­cho­log­i­cal harm can be pro­found. Stig­ma and the fear of re­tal­i­a­tion com­pli­cate their rein­te­gra­tion back in­to nor­mal life.

For girls es­pe­cial­ly, sex­u­al vi­o­lence deep­ens their trau­ma and ex­clu­sion from so­ci­ety.

The cy­cle of vi­o­lence can be­come self-per­pet­u­at­ing.

A new re­port re­leased Fri­day by the UN in Haiti calls for stronger child pro­tec­tion sys­tems, re­stored ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion and ini­tia­tives that pre­vent re­cruit­ment in gang-af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties.

“I joined a gang to avenge my fa­ther’s death. He was killed by a ri­val gang while go­ing to work. I quick­ly gained the trust of the old­er gang mem­bers. They be­came like my fam­i­ly,” said 17-year-old Louis.

The UN said the re­port high­lights that fam­i­lies are key to pre­vent­ing re­cruit­ment and sug­gests an in­crease in re­sources for, es­pe­cial­ly fe­male-head­ed, house­holds to pro­tect chil­dren.

Schools are high­light­ed as play­ing a cru­cial de­ter­rent role by of­fer­ing both learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties and pro­tec­tion from gang in­flu­ence.

The UN con­tin­ues to sup­port chil­dren’s school at­ten­dance through the es­tab­lish­ment of can­teens, the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of build­ings, the cre­ation of tem­po­rary learn­ing spaces and cash trans­fers to fam­i­lies.

Lo­cal or­ga­ni­za­tions are be­ing sup­port­ed by the UN to run vo­ca­tion­al train­ing pro­grammes to pro­vide young peo­ple with em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and an al­ter­na­tive to gang life.

Tack­ling the gangs to slow their ter­ri­to­r­i­al ex­pan­sion and in­flu­ence over lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties, es­pe­cial­ly young peo­ple, is al­so iden­ti­fied as a pri­or­i­ty.

Mem­bers of the UN-backed Gang Sup­pres­sion Force (GSF) es­tab­lished in 2025—and which re­places the strug­gling Kenya-led Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port (MSS) mis­sion—are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in the coun­try in Apri.

Its mis­sion is to re­store state au­thor­i­ty and pub­lic or­der, re­duce gang ter­ri­to­r­i­al con­trol, se­cure crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture, and sup­port the Hait­ian peo­ple as they work to­ward a re­turn to elect­ed gov­er­nance and long-term sta­bil­i­ty. and which is man­dat­ed to have 5,000 per­son­nel is ex­pect­ed to play a key role. —GENE­VA (CMC)