How Gangs Exploit Haiti’s Vulnerable Children Amid Deepening Crisis

The increase comes as poverty deepens and violence increases amid political instability, with gangs that control 85% of Port-au-Prince attacking once peaceful communities in a push to assume total control of the capital. Young boys are often used as informers “because they’re invisible and not seen as a threat,” Narayan said in a phone interview from Haiti. Some are given weapons and forced to participate in attacks. Girls, meanwhile, are forced to cook, clean and even used as so-called “wives” for gang members. “They’re not doing this voluntarily,” Narayan said. “Even when they are armed with weapons, the child here is the victim.

Easy prey
In a country where more than 60% of the population lives on less than $4 a day and hundreds of thousands of Haitians are starving or nearing starvation, recruiting children is often easy.
One minor who was in a gang said he was paid $33 every Saturday, while another said he was paid thousands of dollars in his first month in a gang operation, according to a U.N. Security Council report.
“Children and families are becoming increasingly desperate in some cases because of extreme poverty,” Narayan said. If children refuse to join a gang, gunmen often threaten them or their families or simply abduct them. Gangs also prey on children who are separated from their families after they are deported from the Dominican Republic, which shares a border with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola.
“Those children are increasingly the ones targeted,” Narayan said. Gangs aren’t the only threat as a vigilante movement that began last year to target suspected gang members gains momentum.

UNICEF said children “are often viewed with suspicion, and risk being branded as spies or even killed by vigilante movements. When they defect or refuse to join the violence, their lives and safety are immediately at risk.” A video posted on social media last week after gangs attacked an area around an upscale community showed the body of a child lying next to an adult who also was slain. Police said that at least 28 suspected gang members were killed that day as residents armed with guns and machetes fought side-by-side with officers.

Increased vulnerability
The gangs that recruit the most children are 5 Segond, Brooklyn, Kraze Barye, Grand Ravine and Terre Noire, according to the U.N. Security Council report.