Aid workers trawled the tent cities to pick up young girls
ORPHANED girls in Haiti – some as young as 12 – were regularly taken by aid workers from refugee camps for sex, the Mail on Sunday has learned.
The workers cruised the streets in charity vehicles in the middle of the night and ‘spirited girls from their tents’ before returning them to the camps by morning. Some of the girls were paid around €2.80 for their encounters with their abusers.
Human rights lawyer Antonal Mortime claimed the practice was widespread following the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, which left 220,000 dead and 1.5 million homeless – and still continues today. In an interview, Mr Mortime painted a bleak portrait of a country in which ‘the worst kind of sexual exploitation’ had, for many, become a fact of life.
‘The girls, aged between 12 and 17, had nothing,’ he said. ‘Their families had been wiped out and they had little food or water.
‘The men were from European and American agencies who knew exactly the situation. They arrived at the refugee camps in their Land Cruisers but were careful not to wear anything revealing which charity they represented.
‘They took the girls away for sex at their villas and hotels. They paid them very little – perhaps the older girls were able to negotiate more – and then drove them back to the camps before dawn so their crimes would go undetected.
‘It happened over and over again, week after week, and I’ve heard reports of it still
‘They took the girls for sex in villas and hotels’
happening in isolation even now. No one can call this prostitution: the girls were confused and starving and had little choice. It is difficult to conceive of anything more sinful given what had happened to Haiti.’
His shocking revelation follows a warning last week from Bocchit Edmond, Haiti’s ambassador to the UK, who raised concerns that a paedophile ring might have been operating.
Mr Mortime, the director of a collective of human rights lawyers in the country’s capital Port-au-Prince, said the actions of the refugee camp predators was common knowledge among the aid agency community.
‘I know that at least three international charities warned staff of severe repercussions if they became involved. But still it went on.’
He added that the agencies acted with impunity because ‘our government was weak’. An MoS investigation in Haiti, in the wake of the Oxfam sex scandal, can also reveal that officials there are investigating reports that girls of 12 and 13 may have attended aid agency sex parties and that missionaries preyed on children in orphanages.
Oxfam is accused of covering up claims that its workers used prostitutes in Haiti in 2011 – and has been ordered to send evidence of alleged criminal behaviour by its staff to law enforcement agencies.
The process paves the way for prosecutions to be considered there or in the suspects’ countries.
Prostitution is illegal in Haiti, as is having sex with someone under the age of 18.
Four members of Oxfam staff were dismissed and three, including the charity’s country director Roland van Hauwermeiren – who denies claims he used prostitutes – were allowed to leave their jobs before the end of a 2011 investigation. Among the many allegations facing Oxfam is the claim that a luxury apartment block it rented in Port-au-Prince was used by workers for sex parties likened to a ‘Caligula orgy’ with young prostitutes. It is claimed that similar parties were held at other compounds across the city.
Renan Hedouville, head of the Haiti government-funded Office for the Protection of Citizens, said: ‘We have found that, since 2010, individuals in some international NGOs [nongovernmental organisations] operated beyond the law.
‘I have heard reports – so far unverified – that girls of 12 or 13 were involved. We are preparing to investigate in an attempt to identify possible victims.’
Mr Hedouville added: ‘This whole scandal – not just involving Oxfam but other agencies too – has remained hidden for far too long. Many organisations did much to help – there are some very good people out there – but some individuals, too many, were involved in practices that were wrong.
‘It is an injustice to the people of Haiti who are victims but also to the people from around the world who expect their donations to be used properly and responsibly.’
Sex workers in Port-au-Prince, where one in four people live on less than €1 a day, said some aid workers are charged about €2.80, while locals typically pay around 80c.
On Friday night in the upmarket hillside Port-au-Prince suburb Pétion-Ville, home to many aid workers, young women were grouped in knots in doorways and at street corners.
One, Mireille, 23, said she turned to prostitution aged 16 a year after the earthquake.
She once harboured dreams of becoming a nurse like her mother, who, along with her father, two brothers, aunt and cousin, were killed.
‘Before the earthquake life was good,’ she said. ‘Then everything changed. I lived in a refugee camp for a while with the daughter of my mother’s friend.
‘We had nothing and were starving, so this was the only way out.’
She works the streets six nights a week, sometimes seven.
‘Many aid workers, all nationalities, are among my clients. Less so now, but I still see them at least once a week. They are good customers.’
Government officials in Haiti meanwhile warn of another impending scandal – that children living in the country’s 750 orphanages have fallen victim to sexual predators.
‘Since the earthquake there have been reports of missionaries from the US abusing children in orphanages,’ said Andolph Guillame of the Ministry of Social Affairs. ‘This is a huge scandal.’
Last year a report by Lumos, the charity founded by Harry Potter author JK Rowling, said many orphanages in Haiti use deception to recruit children from impoverished parents.
Around 30,000 live in orphanages, yet four out of five children have at least one living parent. Child finders working on behalf of the orphanages offer parents money to give children away, promising a better life.
Lumos said it found evidence of abuse in orphanages but added that cases ‘rarely come to light’.
‘I’ve heard youngsters of 12 or 13 were involved’