Following months of unrelenting gang violence, hundreds of fatalities, and the overthrow of a government, Haiti is now dealing with yet another tragic problem that is certain to worsen the island nation’s problems for yet another generation. Amnesty International has gathered testimonies that reveal the recruitment of hundreds of youngsters by Haiti’s armed gangs.
“We have documented heartbreaking stories of children forced to work for gangs: from running deliveries to gathering information and performing domestic tasks under threats of violence,” noted Amnesty International’s Americas director, Ana Piquer.
- Advertisement -
Young boys as young as the age of six are being pushed to erect street barricades, function as lookouts, receive machine gun training, and are being ordered to take part in violent crimes including kidnappings. According to Piquer, older male gang members rape and commit other sexual crimes against girls who are under their care.
Approximately 90% of Haiti’s major city, Port-au-Prince, is presently under the authority of 200 armed gangs, and a sizable portion of the nation is ungoverned. Gang leaders like Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier have been able to carry out horrific crimes with little to no opposition due to the breakdown of law and order.
It is not particularly new for youngsters to be involved in Haitian gangs. Between 30% and 50% of Haitian youngsters are somehow associated with armed organizations, according to Unicef. This can be explained in several socioeconomic ways.
Before gaining independence in 1804, Haiti, the richest European colony in the Americas, organized the only successful slave uprising against its French colonizers. However, Haiti is now a failing state, with over half of its people living below the poverty level set by the World Bank.
According to data released by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the impoverished nation has the highest rate of food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean, with one-third of the population going hungry every day. The country’s extreme poverty and lack of resources have left the populace desperate, and many of its children are lured into criminal organizations. Sometimes, the promise of a single meal is all it takes for a child to join a gang.
However, the disruption of law and order across the nation has surely prompted gangs to recruit more minors. Once indoctrinated, child soldiers make for inexpensive and lethal warriors, as is the case in most conflict areas.
Another particular societal aspect also plays a role in some parents’ refusal to notice their kids entering gangs. Restaveks, a socioeconomic practice in Haiti, are connected to the high rate of kid recruitment by gangs.
A restavek, which means “to stay with” in Creole, is a kid given away by poor parents with the unspoken promise that they will be fed, cared for, and not starve to death. It has evolved into a contemporary kind of slavery.
According to the End Slavery Now organization, over “300,000 children are victims of domestic slavery” in Haiti at the moment. Many of these kids experience sexual and physical abuse on a daily basis.
Sexual assault and child sex slavery are commonplace in countries ripped apart by civil conflict. It is more likely to occur in environments with a poor or nonexistent governance mechanism. Due to the conditions of criminal impunity created by this circumstance, different conflict players take advantage of youngsters sexually.
In Haiti, the practice of predatory child sexual slavery is well-established. Some personnel of the UN peacekeeping force stationed in Haiti were discovered to have been involved in a child sex ring after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country and the cholera outbreak that followed.
At least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers were implicated, according to a 2017 investigation conducted by a news publication team. The troops have been known to sexually assault and impregnate females as young as 11, leaving them to raise their children by themselves. This enterprise exploited Haitian youngsters who were famished and impoverished in return for leftover food scraps from the soldiers.
The UN peacekeeping force admitted that it was in charge of “transactional sex” when it was stationed there.
Violence against children was referred to be a “silent emergency” of our day by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in 2019. Unfortunately, despite the seriousness of Guterres’ comments, not much is being done to address this situation.
Haiti is confronted with several existential issues. Some of them, like the gangs’ ubiquity and their terror tactics, are domestic.
But, as it is positioned on a geological fault line in an area vulnerable to violent storms, Haiti is particularly prone to natural calamities. The nation was crippled by a terrible earthquake in 2010 and a cholera outbreak in 2016, with consequences that will persist for decades.
To exacerbate the situation, Haiti also lacks compassion. The people are now at the mercy of gang violence as a result of the international community’s lack of genuine participation, which has also led to the breakdown of Haiti’s civil society.
The operational capacity of the Kenyan-led policing mission, which is entrusted with reestablishing order, has been impacted by limited financing and equipment. Of the US$600 million initially promised for the expedition, only about US$400 million (£308 million) have come to fruition, with the US bearing an excessive financial burden.
The tragedies taking place in the distant Caribbean beneath the tropical heat seem to be of little concern to the world community, which is preoccupied with more well-known wars elsewhere.
