Traffickers Likely To Prey On Kids In Haiti After Hurricane Matthew: Report | Huffington Post

"Before Hurricane Matthew hit, underserved children in Haiti were at risk for human trafficking. The effects of the storm have now exacerbated those risks."

Read MORE

Traffickers Likely To Prey On Kids In Haiti After Hurricane Matthew: Report | Huffington Post:

Many Haiti orphanages run by child traffickers, says J.K. ...

""When people hear the word 'orphanage', they imagine that it's a good thing or they imagine that it's necessary," Lumos Chief Executive Georgette Mulheir told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Tuesday."

""They do not imagine that so many orphanages are actually trafficking, beating, sexually abusing and starving children.""

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Many Haiti orphanages run by child traffickers, says J.K. ...:

(Reporting by Manipadma Jena; editing by Katie Nguyen and Jo Griffin. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)

Broward College Conference Highlights Haiti's Attempts To Curb Child Slavery | WLRN

The underground restavec community is a long-held practice in Haitian culture where mostly poor rural families will send their children to live with families of better means. In exchange for hosting the child and paying for schooling, which is usually the promise, the children perform domestic work.

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Broward College Conference Highlights Haiti's Attempts To Curb Child Slavery | WLRN:

A Girl’s Escape - NYTimes.com

Source:  NYTimes.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — She was a 13-year-old girl who said she was beaten daily by strangers who forced her to work unpaid in their home, and she wanted to escape. 

Continue here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/opinion/kristof-a-girls-escape.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Spain grapples with human trafficking - Features - Al Jazeera English

Source: Al Jazeera English

"To raise society's awareness about what is happening, it has to be made clear that trafficking is not prostitution or irregular immigration, but that there are undocumented immigrants and people who are sexually exploited who are victims of trafficking," Maleno said.

Child servants a blot on Haiti's abolitionist past | Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/04/us-haiti-restaveks-idUSBRE8B300320121204

Source: Reuters

By Anastasia Moloney

Mon Dec 3, 2012 7:02pm EST

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec 4 (TrustLaw) - Dayana Denois was always the last to go to bed and the first to wake up. By dawn, she had washed the dishes and clothes, cleaned and swept the floor and emptied the chamber pots.

"I didn't know what resting meant. Even when I was sick, I'd never get a break," Denois said, recalling the years she spent living with her aunt in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince.

"She didn't care if I was tired or not. She kept telling me to do things. She beat me with electric cables, shouted at me, punched and slapped me on the face," the 12-year-old said.

Denois was a "restavek", from the French "rester avec" or "to stay with", a Haitian Creole word that refers to the practice of parents giving away children they are too poor to feed and look after.

Mostly from rural areas, these children are sent to stay with wealthier relatives and acquaintances in the hope they will be given a better life and sent to school. But instead many of them are treated as little more than slaves.

The irony is not lost in a country that was the first in the Americas to abolish slavery more than 200 years ago.

Experts say the number of restaveks accelerated after the massive earthquake on the Caribbean island nation in 2010.

"Many children lost their families. They didn't have a place to sleep and have someone to take care of them. And they met people who put them in domestic servitude," said Marline Mondesir, who founded a refuge for restavek children.

The International Labour Organisation estimates that one in 10 Haitian children is a restavek - across the country that amounts to around 300,000 individuals.

REFUGE

For Denois, four years of verbal and physical abuse finally ended when a concerned neighbor put her in touch with Haiti's social services, which referred her to the Action Centre for Development.

An hour's drive from Port-au-Prince, the refuge is home to nearly 100 former restaveks and street children.

Mondesir, who founded the centre in 1994, says poverty fuels the system of slavery. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere; nearly 80 percent of Haitians live on less than $2 a day.

"When a mother has eight children, living with no electricity and little food, taking care of all her children and sending them all to school is very difficult," Mondesir said.

"The mother has no choice but to send some away. It's a very sad situation for many mothers. They tell me, 'I have no work and no money. I have too many mouths to feed'."

Middlemen, or "koutchye", as they are known in Creole, are sometimes paid to recruit restaveks for host families living in the affluent neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince.

But restaveks are also found living in the slums, where the lack of water and electricity means demand for child labour is high. These families, though poor, tend to be better off than those living in rural areas, and use children sent by their country relatives as restaveks in their homes.

The children are often seen going about their daily chores in the capital: carrying buckets of water on their heads or shopping at the market, lugging charcoal and firewood.

UNUSUAL WEDDING GIFT

The restavek system is driven by a combination of long-standing economic and social problems in Haiti, from widespread poverty and high unemployment to a lack of family planning and health care in rural areas.

Campaigners say the failure of the Haitian authorities to focus on the rights of children or enforce existing laws against child labour is a big contributor.

The government protests it is addressing the restavek problem by helping rural women and promoting free education.

"The government believes the best way to fight this problem is to empower poor mothers living in rural areas and to help those mothers so they don't have to give their children away," said Guy Delva, secretary of state for communications for the government of President Michel Martelly.

Initiatives include food aid and small loans to mothers as part of a $125-million-a-year state-funded programme, and a government drive to provide free education and school meals to all Haitian children.

But the restavek tradition could not exist if it was not accepted, or at least tolerated, in Haitian culture.

It is not uncommon for high society brides to ask for a little person - "ti moun" in Creole - for a wedding present.

"Some families believe they're doing their restavek children a favor by saving them from living on the streets and a life of hunger in the countryside. Some families do send their restaveks to school and feed them," said Mondesir.

But this is more the exception than the rule, she said. Most restaveks arrive at her refuge unable to read and write, malnourished and with scars from beatings.

Sexual abuse, including rape, is not uncommon.

"They've all been deprived of love and maternal affection," said psychologist Luckenson Dardompre, who works and lives at the refuge.

"But the source of their trauma is the mistreatment they've received for years, including rape and sexual abuse. Many are beaten by the families they live with, by the father, mother, uncles and aunts."

The abuse, isolation and loneliness restaveks have endured is hard for them to overcome, he said.

"Some have suicidal thoughts. Other children will tell you about the abuse they've experienced using exactly the same words every time for weeks. It's something they can't forget," Dardompre said.

SAFE HAVEN

The spacious and clean refuge, with its mountain and sea views, is a safe haven for the children. Here they receive three meals a day, go to school and play.

Inside the girls' plain dormitory are rows of neatly made bunk beds. For the first time in her life, Denois can sleep on a proper bed and not on the floor. She cherishes her few belongings - a toothbrush and cup, a teddy bear, some pens and a change of clothes - which she keeps in her own locker.

"Before I never had the time to play and now I do. No-one bothers me. I found people that love me, they give me what I need," Denois said.

At the canteen during lunchtime, the only sound that can be heard is the clatter of forks on plates as children tuck into a meal of rice and beans.

After lunch, the children play dominoes, cards, and a game of musical chairs. Some crowd around a book to hear the story of Aladdin read aloud by a teacher. Several girls play with a doll's house, others plait each others' hair.

"Some children when they first arrive here, go through rubbish bins looking for food," said Dardompre. "The routine of breakfast, lunch and dinner, brushing their teeth in the morning, washing their hands - this is all new to them."

Mondesir and her staff do their best to give the children an education. Inside the brightly painted green and pink classrooms, they learn how to use computers, to read and write, and other skills like sewing.

Mondesir hopes it will allow the children to fend for themselves and get a job when they leave the refuge at 18. But in a country where one in every two adults is unemployed, few will find decent jobs.

The long-term aim of the refuge is to reunite children with their biological parents. Social workers often go to the countryside to track down their families. The children's yearning to be with their mothers again is strong.

Meanwhile, the healing continues.

"We can't totally erase the trauma these children have but we can diminish the trauma they feel by getting them to play and make friends," Dardompre said. "But their wounds are very deep. The wounds have become part of their souls and spirit."

(TrustLaw is a global news service covering human rights and governance issues and run by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters)

(Editing by Katie Nguyen and Sonya Hepinstall)

Trafficking and modern day slavery - TrustLaw

http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/slavery-beyond-the-sex-trade/

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:00 GMT

Source: Trustlaw // Katie Nguyen

A 19-year-old trafficking victim from central Myanmar who, two years ago, managed to escape two brokers who promised a job in a nearby town but instead took her to a town in the far north and tried to get her to become a sex worker. October 12, 2012. REUTERS/Minzayar Oo

By Katie Nguyen 

LONDON (TrustLaw) - In Haiti, it's the little girl who is kept home from school and forced to clean her sister's house or else be beaten with electric cables.

Thousands of miles away in India, it's the shy, young woman left at the mercy of an agent who finds her a job as a maid but takes her earnings. In Bahrain, it's the Filippino domestic worker who, abused and exploited by her employer, cannot leave.   

Millions of people around the world today are trapped in slavery, like seven-year-old Wisline was in Haiti.

"My sister came to get me at my mother's house, saying she would put me in school but when I got to her house, she started making me work and cook for her and she began mistreating me," says Wisline, who now lives in a refuge with other former child slaves outside of Port-au-Prince.

Exactly how many people are enslaved is impossible to know.

Estimates range from 27 million, cited by advocacy group, Free the Slaves, to the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) figure of 20.9 million people - of which about 2.2 million are forced labourers of the state, for example, working in prisons.

While women and girls account for the greater share of 21st century slaves, coverage of their plight has been dominated by stories of sex trafficking and lurid tales of being forced to sell their bodies in brothels and on street corners.

Yet data from the ILO suggests that far more women and girls are victims of domestic servitude and other types of forced labour than they are of the sex trade.

Of the estimated 11.4 million women and girls in forced labour globally, around 4.4 million are subjected to sexual exploitation in foreign countries, according to the ILO.

That leaves some 7 million trapped in labour exploitation. Unlike sex trafficking, most of it is taking place in the victims' own countries.   

DESPERATE FOR WORK

Although the ILO gives no breakdown, campaigners say forced labour involving women and girls includes everything from being enslaved in private homes as servants, cooks and nannies to working in factories, farms and textile mills, and even, according to some reports, nail bars and cannabis farms.

Another notable trend has been the trafficking of women into forced marriages in regions where men outnumber women. For example, 70 percent of the trafficking cases in Myanmar in 2011 involved local women being lured into neighbouring China - often on the pretext of finding work - only to be forced to marry Chinese men.

"Today you don't have to kidnap people, use violence to pull people into slavery," said Kevin Bales, co-founder of Free the Slaves. "There are so many people who are desperate for work ... that you just have to offer people a job."

Despite the scale of the problem and the suffering it causes, eradicating modern day slavery has proved elusive.

One of the hurdles is identifying victims.

Those in domestic servitude - whether migrant domestic workers or not - are less visible than in sex trafficking, which is one of the reasons why the sector has been overlooked, activists say.

So-called domestic slaves tend to be isolated and hidden from view, with abuses usually occurring behind closed doors.   

DOMESTIC SERVITUDE

In the privacy of their own homes, employers are often able to get away with violations that amount to enslavement, activists say. It can start with them confiscating their maids' passports and identity documents or not paying them - and escalate to not feeding them, insulting them verbally and beating them.

"There are so many cases of adults and children being fed scraps, having to sleep under the dining room table, being at the beck and call of their bosses," said Anti-Slavery International spokeswoman Elizabeth Muggleton.

"With child domestic workers, they might just look like another member of the family. It takes a slightly keen eye to recognise that there's only one child who's carrying the shopping bags," she said, referring to "Cinderella-style" cases of children forced to look after other children, and being badly mistreated.

In recognition of their particular vulnerability, governments adopted ILO's Convention 189 to protect domestic workers last year in a boost for millions of exploited women. To date, three countries - Uruguay, the Philippines and Mauritius - have ratifed the treaty.

Yet at the same time, many countries like Britain and the majority of Arab states have tied work permits for domestic workers to a single employer.

It's a policy that exposes workers to the risk of forced labour because it leaves them with few alternatives but to stick it out with a potentially abusive employer, experts say.

The fight against slavery has been championed recently by the United States with what advocates say was a landmark speech by President Barack Obama in September.

Calling it "one of the great human rights causes of our time", Obama announced a string of initiatives to combat the problem including an executive order designed to strengthen U.S. efforts to stamp out slavery from federal contracts.

While giving credit to countries such as Brazil and the United States for taking the lead in addressing forced labour, Beate Andrees, head of ILO's special action programme to combat forced labour, said: "We don't have the critical masses yet."

"There are many leaders and governments who can deny (it) and don't want to address it, so we are still a long way from eliminating the problem," Andrees told TrustLaw in a telephone interview from Geneva.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO END SLAVERY?

Besides political will, tackling corruption, pushing governments to enforce their anti-slavery laws and companies to scrutinise their supply chains would go a long way to ending slavery, experts say.

So would boosting the number of convictions for trafficking.

"The very numbers of identified victims or convicted traffickers remain very, very low," Silke Albert, a crime prevention expert for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told TrustLaw.

Last year, 946 trafficking cases were referred to the British authorities, yet only eight human trafficking convictions were secured in England and Wales.

"Trafficking is a very complex crime," UNODC's Albert said.  "Many victims are for example in illegal situations. They have been brought in illegally or they have not been employed legally ... so they fear the police instead of turning to the police, and of course, they are badly controlled by their traffickers."

Women are both the victims of trafficking and the perpetrators, according to a UNODC report in 2009, which said female offenders had a more prominent role in present day slavery than in most other crimes.

It is unclear whether that is because women have been coerced into recruiting other women or because they can more easily approach and gain the trust of their victims.

What's certain is that women and girls will continue to suffer - and slavery will continue to thrive if its root causes are left unaddressed.

"The root causes of slavery are in social injustice, in discrimination, in poverty," Gulnara Shahinian, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, told TrustLaw. "Where all of these things are existing in a country, slavery will exist."

This article is part of a Thomson Reuters Foundation special report on trafficking and modern day slavery.

Trafficking and modern day slavery will be high on the agenda at the Trust Women conference, Dec 4-5

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Two Nepalese trafficking victims rescued in Haiti: IOM < Swiss news | Expatica Switzerland

http://www.expatica.com/ch/news/swiss-news/two-nepalese-trafficking-victims-rescued-in-haiti-iom_248160.html

SOURCE: Expatica Switzerland

23/10/2012

Two Nepalese men were rescued from prison-like conditions in Haiti after 11 months at the mercy of human traffickers who had promised them jobs in the United States, the International Organization for Migration said Tuesday.

The men, in their 30s, had been recruited in their native Nepal by a human smuggling network that had charged them an unspecified fee in exchange for legal immigration and work in the US, Jumbe Omari Jumbe, a spokesman for the Geneva-based organisation told reporters.

Since starting their journey last November, the men had been shuttled through Singapore, China, Brazil, Panama and finally on to Haiti -- supposedly their last stop before reaching the US -- and had been provided official visas for each country they stopped in.

"It reads like a detective story," Jumbe said, pointing out that the smugglers must have had a massive network since they "actually obtained visas from all these countries."

"They must have paid thousands of dollars," he added.

Although the two men had been willingly smuggled initially, they became trafficking victims when they arrived in Haiti in January this year and were taken to a private home in the northern city of Cap Haitien.

"They were kept as virtual prisoners with little food and dirty drinking water," Jumbe said, adding that the family had confiscated their passports, threatened them and demanded money.

But when their captors told them to call their families and ask for more cash, the men described to their loved-ones, in Nepalese, details of landmarks they had passed when they were being transported to the house.

Their relatives then contacted Nepalese police, who in turn alerted police units forming part of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, which organised a rescue mission.

"It was very hard finding the area, because these men were in prison. They didn't see where they were. But finally through hard work they found them and they were rescued," Jumbe said.

IOM, which has helped some 2,000 human trafficking victims since it began working on the issue in 1994, transported the two men back to Nepal, he said.

"This case confirms that Haiti is a country of origin, transit and destination for human trafficking and migrant smuggling," IOM's mission chief in Haiti, Gregoire Goodstein, said in a statement.

"The criminal networks at work in Haiti are national and international," he added.

Most trafficking victims in Haiti are Haitian children who are exploited as cheap or free labour, according to IOM, pointing to the so-called "restavek" (from the French 'reste avec', meaning stays with) system that dates back at least two centuries.

According to that system, children from very poor rural areas are "entrusted" to families in urban areas who are supposed to provide for their needs, including education, in exchange for their work.

But, IOM said, "the vast majority of restaveks end up exploited and abused."

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• Trafficking in Motion Pictures: Help or Hindrance?

Can a Picture Free 1000 Slaves?

BY ANNA HALL ON AUGUST 7, 2012  

Source: FTS Blog

In this image from Brazil, a trafficker (red) dreams of enslaving a worker (blue). The worker dreams of earning money for his family. | Image created by International labor Organization, used by CPT.

When it comes to fighting slavery, creativity and innovation are essential. So Free the Slaves and our frontline partners use art to teach community members around the world about their rights.

We’ve found that picture strips are remarkably successful. The images allow those in slavery—and those who are vulnerable to slavery—to quickly see that life can be different.

“They came to identify their own situation when looking at these cartoons,” says Xavier Plassat, a FTS board member and frontline organizer with the Pastoral Land Commission in Brazil.

“They used to tell me, in their own words: ‘eu me achei‘ (translation: I found myself),” Xavier says. ”Because the laborers were able to visualize themselves in the pictures, they could learn how to prevent similar situations from happening to them or others.”

A comic strip from CPT Brazil.

In Haiti, picture books are used for small-group discussions in remote villages where parents often send children away to work as domestic help in cities, in hopes they’ll be fed and educated. Many of the children end up in slavery, and the books “open the eyes of parents who sent children” according to FTS Haiti Coordinator Smith Maxime.

Christmas Barjon leads a community discussion in Bresilienne, Haiti. | FTS Photo

The pictures act “like a fire that heats the consciousness of parents,” Smith says. Village leaders, trained by our Haitian partner Fondasyon Limyè Lavi, guide parents through a story of children falling into slavery.

“At first contact with the book, parents feel the need to go retrieve their children,” Smith says. “Pictures speak a thousand words.”

Pictures are carefully crafted to tell stories of individuals in risky situations, such as those intending to migrate, as well as stories of enslaved individuals and the abuse they are suffering. The stories are designed to teach community members what their rights are, and how to assert them.

In Nepal, for example, one strip tells the story of a woman who is offered a job abroad by a tricky trafficker. She is enslaved, and then jailed for being undocumented. When she eventually returns home, she seeks justice – ultimately sending the trafficker to jail – and she shares her story to warn others. The strip was developed by FTS partner AATWIN, and is being used by all our Nepali partner groups.

Nepal picture strip shows a woman being lured away from home by the false promises of a trafficker.

Pictures help FTS bridge communication gaps between communities and activists, making learning more accessible and interesting. Art is particularly effective in areas where people are unable to read.

“The reality is that children often don’t have the words to convey what they are needing and wanting,” says FTS Associate Programs Director Ginny Baumann. “So the pictures form stories that allow adult participants to try to imagine what the children might be feeling.”

In some cases, pictures help people escape slavery.

“There’s a situation where a trafficked worker in another part of India, where he didn’t speak the language, used a comic strip picture about slavery to show the police the situation he was in,” Ginny explains. “Using the leaflet, the police could then help him get back home with the help of our partner organization.”

Slavery thrives when the vulnerable are discouraged from thinking and reflecting on their situation. Visual images can be helpful because they sometimes raise questions more effectively than words can. Art can get groups of people to think together about their lives, what is happening, and what is right and wrong.

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Haitian Trafficking Victims Discovered in Ecuador - IPS ipsnews.net

By Gonzalo Ortiz

QUITO, Apr 14, 2011 (IPS) - The four young Haitians told legal authorities that they were offered complete scholarships to the university, but that once they reached Ecuador they were locked up in a house and made to pay 150 dollars a month for rent and board, while given the run around about the promised education.

"Deceived with the prospect of free university studies, 30 people between the ages of 18 and 23, one aged 17 and two aged 28 came from Haiti and were kept locked up in a house in the Consejo Provincial neighbourhood in the extreme north of Quito, some since November 2010," a member of the migration police present at the legal hearing on the case, who preferred to remain anonymous, told IPS.

The Jesuit Service for Refugees and Migrants in Ecuador (SJRM), which found out about the situation from its contacts among Haitians living in Quito, alerted the police in February, and a Haitian family who ran the house as a de facto prison were arrested.

Apparently all of the young people have relatives in the United States or Canada, which was in fact one of the requisites for selection for the supposed scholarship programme, back in Port-au-Prince.

With great difficulty, their families pulled together the money to pay for the tickets for the trip that took the young people from Havana to Panama City to Quito, plus "a one-time registration fee of 300 dollars."

But once they got to Quito, they were imprisoned and extorted in different ways, to get their families in North America to send the required 150 dollars a month.

Although some of the Haitians were held since November, most arrived in December and January.

"The hearing was held Friday April 8 in the prosecutor's office in (the northern province of) Pichincha, and the investigation is ongoing," Juan Villalobos, with the SJRM, told IPS.

The case, which has received little attention in Ecuador, "is extremely serious," Jesuit priest Fernando Ponce, the director of the SJRM in Ecuador, told IPS.

He said the trafficking of persons should not be treated with indifference by society.

This case is only one of a number of instances of trafficking of Haitians to South America in the last three years or so.

Edson Louidor, SJRM regional coordinator of advocacy and communication for Latin America and the Caribbean, said that in 2009, there were an estimated 75,000 Haitians in the region, but the number "has climbed fast since then."

Louidor, who is himself from Haiti, told IPS that while precise figures are not available, "there are constant flows of Haitian migrants towards" South America, and the main entry points are Ecuador and Chile.

According to SJRM statistics, 392 Haitians reached Chile in 2008, 477 in 2009, 820 in 2010, and 125 in January 2011 alone. As for Ecuador, 1,258 Haitian immigrants entered the country in 2009, 1,687 in 2010 and 1,112 in the first quarter of this year.

However, not all of them stay. The SJRM estimates that the Haitian community in Ecuador numbers over 1,000 people. Of that total, 390 were granted an amnesty by the government of Rafael Correa after Haiti was devastated by the January 2010 earthquake that left a death toll of over 300,000.

The 390 Haitians were given legal immigration status and were allowed to bring their families to Ecuador.

Louidor explained that the destination that the Haitian immigrants are trying to reach is not Ecuador or Chile. "Their final goal has always been to reach French Guiana, and head to France or to the United States," he said.

"The Haitians who came to Ecuador in 2009 went on to Venezuela through Colombia to try to reach French Guiana. But since the earthquake last year, these immigration routes have become more complicated," he said.

The closure of the borders of French Guiana, an overseas region of France, and the stiffening of U.S. immigration policies have diverted the flow of migrants, to Brazil for example, a country reached by 1,200 to 2,000 Haitians who crossed the border by Amazon jungle routes, Louidor said.

They travel from Ecuador to Brazil, through Iquitos and Madre de Dios in Peru's northern jungle, or through the highlands and then the Yungas forest region of Bolivia.

"They also try to fly from Chile to Venezuela by plane, and use other transit countries like the Dominican Republic or Cuba," he added.

An estimated two million Haitians live in the United States, between 500,000 and 750,000 in the Dominican Republic, some 400,000 in Cuba, 200,000 in Canada, 100,000 in France and another 100,000 in the French Antilles, besides the much smaller groups already mentioned in South America.

"For that reason, remittances are still the main source of income in Haiti," which has an estimated population of 8.5 million, Loudoir said. "In 2010 remittances totalled two billion dollars – much more than the international aid for the earthquake, which amounted to 500 million dollars."

Ponce said "the SJRM is concerned about the worsening of the humanitarian situation in Haiti, which is forcing people to leave the country," and about the incapacity of the Haitian government and the international community to respond to the Haitian people's needs.

Louidor concurred, saying "to this you have to add the slow pace of reconstruction in Haiti, which has fuelled the activities of trafficking networks."

These networks lure in young trafficking victims in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, and toughened immigration policies have driven up the risks and made victims even more vulnerable, he said.

The SJRM has urged the governments of Latin America to provide a humanitarian response to the plight of Haitian migrants, by granting them humanitarian visas, for example. "Deportation is inhumane in a situation like the one Haiti is experiencing," Louidor said.

In addition, given cases like the one that was recently discovered in Quito, "a regional network should be created to fight the trafficking of Haitians, making a distinction between perpetrators and victims, and punishing the perpetrators while protecting the victims," Ponce said.

The SJRM "works with civil society organisations and other bodies that can help protect and assist trafficking victims," he noted.

"In sheer numbers, the figures might look small, but it is a worrisome situation, because this is a population that is not deportable but whose immigration status is hard to regularise," the priest said.

"The Ecuadorian government has given assurances that the Haitians won't be deported because of the situation their country is in. But the new immigration law does not offer viable solutions for this population group," Ponce added.

Lack of work, limited language skills in Spanish and lack of support networks put Haitian immigrants in a much more difficult position than Peruvian or Colombian immigrants, for instance, making them more vulnerable, he said.

He said the SJRM has set up a school to teach the Haitian immigrants Spanish, and is providing them with legal assistance and helping facilitate the insertion of their children into the educational system. "Ecuador must not be a xenophobic country, a country of discrimination," he said. (END) Haitian Trafficking Victims Discovered in Ecuador - IPS ipsnews.net

Human traffickers sell children to paedophiles - The Local

Published: 15 Apr 11 10:29 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20110415-34415.html

An international band of human traffickers has been caught smuggling children to Germany from Haiti and beyond, then selling them to paedophiles, officials said Friday. The group allegedly posed as an aid organisation, luring the children with promises of a better life.

Two men from Berlin were arrested at the Munich airport this week while trying to illegally enter the country with a 10-year-old, law enforcement officials told daily Berliner Morgenpost.

They came under suspicion when immigration agents suspected the boy’s Brazilian papers were forged. He was later found to be Costa Rican, though most of the children involved have been from Haiti.

Arrest warrants have since been issued for both men, with investigators from the state criminal police (LKA) and state prosecutors manning the case.

The duo, a German and a Swede, are accused of organized human trafficking.

According to an investigator the suspects have been taking children mainly from Haiti, which is still chaotic following the devastating earthquake there in January 2010. There they founded an fake aid organisation to care for underage street children, “apparently not for humanitarian reasons,” the paper reported.

Latin American children like the Costa Rican boy discovered in Munich were also victims of the group.

“The children were probably lured to Berlin under the false pretence of leading a new and better life in Germany,” an investigator said. “Among them were also orphans.”

But the real aim of the suspects was selling the children to Berlin paedophiles for sexual abuse, the paper said.

“The children were placed in a relationship of dependence and then offered to the scene. Following the expiration of their visas after three months they were sent home – with emotional trauma that one can’t even imagine,” the investigator added.

The LKA is now working with the other countries involved to uncover the structure and breadth of the trafficking organisation and find out who their customers were.

“Whoever is making the effort to bring children in from abroad for sexual assault and then sending them back again must not only have a large circle of accomplices, but also some significant influence and significant financial means,” another investigator said.

The Local/ka

Human traffickers sell children to paedophiles - The Local
Source: thelocal.de

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UNICEF - At a glance: Haiti - UNICEF officials work to combat child trafficking on Haiti's border

OUANAMINTHE, Haiti, 11 March 2011— Small dirt paths dot the lush and hilly landscape outside the town of Ouanaminthe, on Haiti’s north-eastern border. It is just one of a number of remote crossings child traffickers use to smuggle children into the Dominican Republic.

VIDEO: 11 March 2011 - UNICEF's Gabrielle Menezes reports on efforts to stop child trafficking on Haiti's northern border. Watch in RealPlayer

UNICEF is working with the Haitian government and non-governmental partners to combat child trafficking. As part of this, the United Nations police force (UNPOL) recently began patrolling these unofficial borders.

The scale of the problem becomes evident while accompanying the police on patrol. Hundreds of miles of border are inaccessible by car, and a lack of resources limits UNPOL’s foot patrols.

“It’s a bigger problem than you would think,” says UNPOL policeman Andre Perrin Child. “Trafficking happens every day, and the controls are almost non-existent.”

More than 2,000 Haitian children were trafficked into the Dominican Republic in 2009. With families thrown into disarray and many made poorer by last year’s devastating earthquake, the temptation to send children to Haiti’s wealthier neighbour in search of work has become even stronger.

Patrolling the borders

On patrol near the village of Capotille, UNPOL receives word that two children have been found abandoned by traffickers. A local family is looking after the children, but is too poor to care for them permanently. UNICEF Child Protection Specialist Gallianne Palayret goes with UNPOL to retrieve the children.

© UNICEF video

UNICEF Child Protection Specialist Gallianne Palayret talks to children abandoned by traffickers near the village of Capotille, Haiti.

Once there, the children – Marie, 8, and Francisco, 4, (not their real names) – hesitantly take hold of Palayret’s hand and are taken to the UNICEF-supported Haitian Police’s ‘Brigade de Protection des Mineurs’, or Child Protection Brigade. Brigade members have the authority to search vehicles and prevent children without papers from crossing the border.

Marie and Francisco say they were travelling with a man who abandoned them after being rumbled trying to cross into the Dominican Republic. Palayret asks about their parents in the hope that he can reunite them.

“From preliminary information we could gather from the children, we think their parents are illegal migrants in the Dominican Republic,” she says. “What happened is that they paid someone to bring their children to the Dominican Republic to be united. “

Care for children

Marie and Francisco are taken to a welcome centre that provides temporary care for trafficking child victims. Run by civil society organization Soeurs Saint Jean, this is one of several care centres that receive UNICEF support. Marie and Francisco are shy at first, but encouraged by the smiles of the social worker, they soon join other children at a play table.

© UNICEF video

Siblings Marie and Francisco receive temporary support at a care centre near the village of Capotille, Haiti. They were abandoned by child traffickers on the Haitian border.

Palayret tries to reunite children with their families whenever it is in their best interest. “Children have a right to be protected and to grow up in a nurturing environment,” she says. “When this is not possible, we try to place children in longer-term residential care centres where their dignity and worth is respected and nurtured.”

The welcome centre will continue to provide Marie and Francisco some stability and comfort while authorities search for their parents.

Source: UNICEF
UNICEF - At a glance: Haiti - UNICEF officials work to combat child trafficking on Haiti's border

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Haiti children sold to human-traffickers for as little as 76p - mirror.co.uk

by Laurie Hanna, Daily Mirror 22/02/2011

THEY survived a devastating earthquake which obliterated their homes and left them in disease-ridden squalor.

And now children in dirt-poor Haiti are being sold to callous human traffickers for less than a quid, it was revealed yesterday.

Some infants in the Caribbean country – still in chaos following last year’s horror quake – are being forced into prostitution.

Others are being adopted by families in Europe who are unaware of their traumatic backgrounds.

Penniless parents, believing their young will lead better lives elsewhere, are handing them to crooks posing as concerned officials.

Melissa Nau, 38, who suffers from learning and physical disabilities, sold four of her five children for 50 Haitian gourdes (76p) each.

Unable to work to provide for them, she was living in a filthy, ramshackle camp in the quake-shattered capital Port-au-Prince when a man she knew only as Jacques offered to buy the youngsters, aged between four and eight.

But the money only lasted a few months and she is broke again.

Melissa and her remaining son Roland, who is 10 months old, later came to the attention of staff from the United Nations Children’s Fund and have been placed in a safe house.

The death toll from the magnitude- 7.0 quake in January last year, Haiti’s worst for more than two centuries, has been estimated at more than 300,000, while about a million have lost their homes.

And new figures from Unicef show 76% of the population now live on less than £1.50 a day.
 

Unicef is working with Brigade de Protection des Mineurs, a police department investigating child abuse, to monitor the refugee camps and borders in an effort to pinpoint vulnerable children.
The BPM discovered that Melissa’s children were given false records and then illegally adopted by European families via an international adoption agency.

A Unicef spokeswoman said: “Well- meaning parents in the US and Europe have no idea that children have been kid-napped or stolen and bought from the displacement camps of Port-au-Prince.”

Françoise Moise, a BPM officer, said trafficking had always been an issue in Haiti but had grown steadily worse in the last year.

Mr Moise said some of the sprawling camps – where the million homeless live in tents – contained more than 80,000 families, making them difficult to monitor.

He added: “People are coming into the camps posing as government officials, or foreigners that have come to help Haiti.

“They also pose as Haitians living abroad coming to help survivors and sometimes even as Haitians living here, pretending to be members of their family.”

Since Unicef started funding the BPM last April, 8,000 children have been identified as “extremely vulnerable” within the camps.

The BPM has also screened 7,000 children passing through the border into the Dominican Republic and 1,400 of those were found not to have the right paperwork.

Thirty-five people have been arrested on suspicion of offences relating to kidnapping but there is no law against trafficking in Haiti.

Dieudonne Barnave, a BPM official, said: “The most difficult thing for us is when they have false documents for the children to cross the border because we don’t have the means of verifying whether these documents are fake or real.”

 

Source:  mirror.co.uk

Haiti children sold to human-traffickers for as little as 76p - mirror.co.uk

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