How to Protect Haiti’s "Orphans"
How to Protect Haiti’s "Orphans"
The recent arrest of members of a U.S. church group on trafficking charges shows that the humanitarian response to the thousands of Haitian children who have been displaced from their families must proceed with caution.
Within 18 days of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that ravaged southern Haiti, news agencies reported that members of a U.S. Baptist Church group were arrested in the Dominican Republic for trafficking Haitian children. “This is no real surprise given history” said Kathleen Bergquist, associate professor of Social Work at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Inevitably, during times of disaster or war, there will be individuals and groups who attempt child rescues without the appropriate paperwork or clearance. Foreigners put local children at risk through child abduction, trafficking and adoption fraud after the Asian Tsunami of 2004 and during the Darfur conflict in Sudan.
The Haiti incident recalls a similar episode in Chad when a French group called Zoe’s Ark attempted to airlift children out of a war zone. Bergquist finds the French government’s response inadequate. Since France did not hold its citizens accountable for attempted child trafficking, the illegal behaviors were ultimately dismissed, leaving no clear answer on how the actions of “humanitarians” engaged in private and illegal airlifts of children will be treated by law enforcement in the future.
Such cruel, or simply ignorant, acts will continue to occur in Haiti unless protective policies are put into place quickly.
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Karen Smith Rotabi is an assistant professor at the Virgina Commonwealth University School of Social Work and a Hague Evaluator for the Council on Accreditation of inter-country adoption agencies.
