Haiti warns on trafficking
2010-02-01 07:21
Special Report
There is not much left of the city's numerous churches, beside crosses and the occasional surviving stained glass window...
Port-Au-Prince - Haiti warned on Sunday of an increase in child trafficking following its devastating earthquake, after police held 10 Americans who allegedly tried to leave the country with more than 30 children.
"We have learned from the media that numerous children have left the country, but no authorisation has been given by the Institute of Social Welfare," said the institute's director, Jeanne-Bernard Pierre.
She said that hundreds of children whose papers had been finalised or were in the process of being finalised would benefit from getting visas to leave in accordance with regulations.
"Evertything is disorganised since January 12 and some people are using it to devote themselves to a veritable trade in children," she said.
The 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12 killed 170 000 people, made more than one million homeless and left many children vulnerable in the Americas' poorest nation.
Reintegration
Pierre said Haitian authorities had also been alerted to cases of "recruitment" of children in southern Haiti.
"One man alone has collected 140 children. We are going to act on this case," she said.
About the 33 children stopped on the Dominican border with 10 people from a US Christian group on Friday, Pierre said that the Americans had not told customs officials that they were taking the children out of the country.
"It was during an inspection that a police officer noticed that dozens of children were in the bus without passports," she said.
"Currently we are putting together papers for the children, then our social workers will inquire into whether they were stolen or whether they were entrusted by their parents (to the aid workers)," she said.
Some parents came to the care centre where the children were now being kept on Sunday, but they were not allowed to take them away, she said.
Pierre said the institute would launch a programme for the reintegration of the children.
- SAPA