street children

Here is a street child in Haiti used by gang members as their informers to assassinate Police Officers.

Haiti has thousand of street children, mostly in Port-au-Prince and the other big cities. In Haiti, there are around 300,000 children that live as Restaveks and 75% of them are girls. Restaveks children are badly treated, often exploited and victims of sexual abuse. They live in unimaginable, unhygienic and precarious environment; seldom receive access to food and education. To stay alive, many of them beg, load buses, wash cars, while others for a better living and protection, join criminal gangs. There was a time when many street children were murdered by the Haitian police, death squads and the former Haitian military. There were certain groups of former military patrols in Port-au-Prince who used to kill street children "for sport." The number of street children in Haiti has increased five times since President Aristide was ousted. In a nation of 10 million, where poverty is common, one of eight children dies before the age of 5, orphanages often are the last refuge of hope-- it is no wonder that thousands of children have made the street their home. If any of them gets killed, no authority ever picks the body or investigates the crime.

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Here are two children in the back of a car of a gang leader in the slum of Cite Soleil. These children are heavily armed . This picture was taken from a video filmed in Haiti in 2004 before the departure of Former President Jean Bertrand Aristide to exile. He is part of the group known as Chimè Cite Soleil.

In 2004, the United Nations termed the slums of Port-au-Prince and Cité Soleil as "the most dangerous place on earth." The outstation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004 left a large number of 9 mm weapons, 38's, American-style machine guns, M-14's and hand grenades in the hands of his supporters. As a consequence of this, regular exchange of ammunition among the gangs and with the UN peacekeeping force was a routine matter. Following Aristide's exit, one study found that about 8,000 people in Port-au-Prince alone were murdered and over 35,000 sexually assaulted. Cité Soleil is an extremely impoverished and densely populated commune within the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince. The streets here are controlled by various gangs, some more violent than others. The gangs operate here like secret army. Even children here carry guns which are smuggled from the U.S and South America. They have grenade launchers, laser-guided rifles and sniper stuff; and even today, day by day, it is getting worse. It is a dangerous place on earth where the guns rule

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This is a picture of a Haitian child taken by one of the Non-Profit Organizations in Haiti to raise money for their own benefits.

Does that benefit the Haitians who are in need or the NGOs or religious organizations? Although many International organizations who go to Haiti are there for good reasons, some of them use haiti as an opportunity of a life time to make a lot of money, unregulated by anyone.

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Here is a picture of President Michel Martelly trying to bring the probllem of Street children in Haiti out in the open. He promissed that he will try to get money for this purpose.

Thanks to the new awareness, they were able to vocalize their grievances in song. The president is a supporter

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Here is a sign of Poverty in Haiti as this child is trying to make a living in the streets. Most of the times these children get clean cars as you see in this picture and are subject to all kind of child abuse

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Built to house 390 children, The Centre d'accueil for Haiti street children provides training and a sense of responsibility to the children of Haiti.

Centre d'accueil was created in 1946 and receives funding from UNICEF in th amount of $461,000 a year.

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Here is a picture of two Haitian chidren where an International or religious organization took the opportunity to take picture of them. This a frequent problem in Haiti where these organizations take the opportunity to put these pictures on youtude and advertize so that they can receive money. Some would say this is an exploitation of the Haitian children

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Here is a picture of two Haitian child hard at work. These children are called restavec and are working, cayying water. They are usually responsible to care for the house. Most likely, they will not attend school and subject to all types of abuse

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