Haiti orphanages hotspot of child trafficking, abuse, says charity

BOGOTA, (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Children living in hundreds of orphanages in Haiti suffer sexual and physical abuse and some are trafficked into orphanages for profit, according to a charity founded by “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling.

Many of Haiti’s orphanages use deception to recruit children from unknowing and impoverished parents - a form of trafficking - and use those children to attract donations, said the report released on Thursday by the London-based charity Lumos.

Donors, mostly from the United States and faith-based organisations, give $70 million a year to one-third of Haiti’s 750 orphanages, it said.

About 30,000 children live in orphanages in Haiti, even though four in five of those children have at least one living parent, Lumos said. Most orphanages are privately funded.

Impoverished families are frequently duped into giving up their children by orphanage directors who hire socalled child-finders and local pastors who also seek out children, it said.

In some cases, families had been paid $75 to give their children away, the report said.

“Many parents are deceived into giving up their children, purely so that unscrupulous individuals can make a profit,” said Lumos Chief Executive Georgette Mulheir in a statement.

“Well-intended donors give vast sums to orphanages. But 80 percent of children living there are not orphans,” she said.

Taking children from their parents through deception, coercion or purchase is a form of human trafficking going largely unchecked, said the report released at Haiti’s first anti-trafficking conference this week in Portau-Prince.