Trafficked Children Returned Home

Americas

Trafficked Children Returned Home

Posted on Friday, 10-08-2007

Haiti - A group of 47 child victims of trafficking have been returned by IOM and the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) to their homes in the impoverished district of Grand Anse in south-west Haiti, where IOM will provide follow-on care and assistance.

Aged between two and seven years of age, the children had been taken from their home town of Jeremie to Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince where they were kept at a rogue centre awaiting international adoption for a period ranging from six months to two years.

The children, who all come from major trafficking source communities, were ‘given away' by their parents in return for promises made by traffickers working for the centre to assist them financially to set up small businesses, and to meet the needs of children who'd been taken away and those remaining behind.

After learning that they had been misled by the traffickers and of the inhumane conditions in which their children were being kept at the centre, parents approached a local NGO, Initiative Départementale contre la Traite et le Traffic des Enfants (IDETTE) to denounce the owner of the centre and to ask for the return of their children. With the help of other NGOs, the parents filed a complaint against the owner of the centre in 2006 and campaigned for the return of their children.

The Haitian government through the Institute for Social Well-Being and Research (IBERS) and the Brigade of the Protection of Minors, the PADF, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Collectif contre la Traite et le Trafic de Personnes, local NGOs and IOM all collaborated to enable the rescue and return of these children.

According to IBERS, whose functions include the approval of adoptions, there are many other bogus centres involved in the trafficking of children for international adoptions. However, a lack of resources means the government agency is currently unable to investigate all centres and to close down all those involved in child trafficking.

A UNICEF/Terre des Hommes study in 2005 revealed that the number of crèches involved in inter-country adoptions had seen a spectacular increase in recent years with fees reaching USD 10,000, mostly to pay lawyers processing the adoptions.

In addition to sheltering the children post-rescue and in helping to return them back home, IOM will provide them with medical and psychological assistance. The educational fees of school-aged children will also be paid for one year while parents will be given micro-grants and training to set up small businesses to ease financial worries during the initial period of return.

One of the most impoverished regions of Haiti, many villages and communities in Grande Anse are difficult to access and have no schools or hospitals. Many families here have between six to eight children with parents often unable to meet basic needs such as food, education and healthcare.

Since 2005, IOM has assisted with the return and reintegration of 121 child victims of trafficking in Haiti with funding from the US State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). In addition to providing medical and psycho-social care, IOM also carries out family tracing, evaluation and reunification, educational/vocational support in addition to giving micro-enterprise grants to parents/caretakers to prevent re-trafficking. Where family reunification is not possible, children are placed in shelters.

For more information, please contact:

Geslet Bordes

IOM Port au Prince

Tel: +509 244 1218; 490 0505

E-mail: gbordes@iom.int

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