Courtesy of Unicef

Just got this press release in my email today anf thought it was worth posting in its entirety. Even as the media spotlight on Haiti fails, let’s not forget the threats facing its children, who are multilayered vulnerable - on top of the vulnerability they had before the earthquake because of their poverty, they now also face threats that come with homelessness, hygiene, disease and a shattered or shaky adult support system around them that would otherwise (or should otherwise) be watching out for them. So it’s good that groups such as ECPAT, Unicef, and Mais, the Movement for the International Self-Development of Solidarity, and the National Council for Children  are building and maintaining child protection efforts. Here also, is a link to a just-released Unicef report detailing what the agency has done for children in the three months following the Jan. 12 earthquake.  It can be found at: Here’s the release I talked about first:

ECPAT-USA’s (End Child Pornography and Trafficking), Dominican Republic Counterpart, MAIS (Movement for the International Self-Development

ECPAT-USA’s (End Child Pornography and Trafficking), Dominican Republic Counterpart, MAIS (Movement for the International Self-Development of Solidarity), along with border organizations, UNICEF and the National Council for Children (CONANI), will begin a coordinated effort to detail the extent of the trafficking crisis and recommend an appropriate response to the problem.

ECPAT-USA has donated $15,000 to MAIS to help them with this project. Below is the latest press release by ECPAT-USA detailing how MAIS will use these funds.

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March 12, 2010 (New York, NY) – ECPAT-USA, a nonprofit organization that advocates for policies to protect sexually exploited and trafficked children, announced that it has donated $15,000 to its Dominican Republican counterpart, MAIS (Movement for the International Self-Development of Solidarity).  The funds will be used to document the increasing numbers of trafficked children crossing the northern region of the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic following Haiti’s devastating earthquake in January.

MAIS will work with representatives of other child welfare agencies, including UNICEF and the National Council for Children (CONANI), as well as border organizations in a coordinated effort to detail the extent of the crisis.  A combined report on their findings from the six-month project will be submitted to Dominican authorities, along with recommendations to help establish appropriate responses to the problem.

Leading the monitoring program are MAIS coordinators Maria Josefina Paulino and Luis Mendez Jimenez. They noted that the deadly earthquake has severely weakened border control, and this has led to more young children being trafficked out of Haiti and transported to the streets of Dominican Republic.  The children are compelled to earn money through such activities as begging, shining shoes, and selling peanuts or eggs to meet quotas established by their adult captors. They are often subject to physical and psychological abuse, or used as mules in drug trafficking and delivery.

“The situation has been worsening for several years, but we have especially noticed an increase in the presence of pre-adolescent children after the earthquake in January.  The children turn up in major tourist destinations such as Santo Domingo, Santiago, as well as Bavaro, Puerto Plata, and Punta Cana,” said Mr. Jimenez.  “They can be found begging at traffic lights, shopping malls and bus terminals, usually controlled by adults who pay for their capture in Haiti and their illegal transfer to the country.”

Carol Smolenski, Executive Director of ECPAT-USA, said donations to MAIS and similar organization are critical to help address a problem that has quickly become a global epidemic. 

“Children have always been easy victims for traffickers, but major disasters such as Haiti’s devastating earthquake create social and political chaos that disrupt families and severely impact the ability of law enforcement agencies to maintain civil control.  Criminal elements move in to exploit the situation at a time when governments and normal social safety nets are at their weakest.”

She added: “When offering donations, supplies and medical assistance to these devastated countries, it’s important to also consider agencies like MAIS, who sometimes are the last hope for many of these exploited children.”

In the past year, ECPAT International partnered with ethical retailer The Body Shop to campaign against global sex trafficking.  In the U.S., 60% of the proceeds from the sales from The Body Shop’s “Soft Hands, Kind Hearts” Hand Cream go to ECPAT-USA.  The organization also promotes the adoption of the Code of Conduct within the hotel industry and among tour operators and other members of the tourism sector.  The Code requires them to implement practical measures to prevent child sex tourism.

For more information, visit www.ecpatusa.org/.  You can also join ECPAT-USA on Facebook http://bit.ly/d63Xie) and follow them on Twitter (twitter.com/ecpatusa).

It is not necessarily healthy to spirit them away from their country, from the language they speak and from the remaining relatives, neighbors and friends who constitute their support system. Nor is it accurate to assume — as illustrated by the recent case of the group detained by Haitians authorities for trying to leave the country with children said to be orphans — that children who survived the earthquake have no living family left. Or that if they do have family, those relatives would not want to take care of these children. That is an assumption that dehumanizes Haitians and make the children into little more than commodities to be shuttled around to other adults in other locations.

Again, many people may approach helping children in Haiti and other poor or battered countries with heartfelt intentions to do good. But intentions are not the best basis for deciding how to aid these kids in a positive way.

On a different note from the same story, let me also emphasize the point that children are still waiting for a variety of services, the reopening of schools chief among them. Few things are healthier for kids in a time of disaster, chaos or instability than the children being able to attend classes every day. Education is — or should be — a child’s right no matter the locale or circumstances. I know there is enormous need in Haiti after the earthquake — piled on top of the needs that existed before it — and that relief and development programs are never executed as fast as we all would like. Still, here’s hoping that schools for as many Haitian children as possible are organized and running as soon as possible.  

Now the IRIN story:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, 22 March 2010 (IRIN) - Mami George, a retired teacher, sits in a courtyard at the small orphanage she manages in San Marie, Port-au-Prince. The area, once home to 2,000 residents, now accommodates some 6,000 people who lost their homes in the January earthquake.

 George began feeding the orphans living on the streets near the site and within days found herself caring for more than 50 children aged between three and 15.

 Only 500 orphans have been registered with the different local and international agencies in Haiti since the quake, not including the ones living in orphanages before the disaster. According to local caretakers, most children who had one living relative were taken in by them, explaining the relatively low number of orphans. The children in George’s care, however, have no one.

 In a small compound, living in tents donated by French volunteers, these children are cared for by a team of local helpers. Food is distributed daily by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) kitchen in the camp, with 1,300 calories crammed into each serving of porridge or rice and beans - enough to keep these children alive but not enough to drive away the hunger pangs.

 Another 900 meals are distributed to school children on the site as part of a WFP food distribution scheme. It plans to provide hot meals to some 170,000 school children nationwide. State schools are closed until 1 April, but local NGOs operate makeshift schools in some areas. In the interim some 2.5 million children remain without access to classes.

 More than two months after the quake, nobody has come to claim any of the children in Mami George’s care.

 The children are stressed, says George, pointing to several mattresses drying on a nearby roof. The children have gone back to bed-wetting after the quake.

 Volunteers from different countries visit the orphanage compound once or twice a week and are an instant attraction for the children. With no toys or playground, every visitor is a welcome distraction. “We cope with what we have, but we need plastic bed sheets, clothes, snacks, toys,” George told IRIN.

 Nineteen volunteer caretakers work in 12-hour shifts, every day of the week, but are unable to address the children’s psychological needs, and local Haitian psychologists are a rarity.

 The International Organization for Migration has opened a psycho-social cluster for NGOs dealing with post-traumatic stress but it is difficult to access 1.3 million people living in 400 temporary sites. The children will have to wait - for assistance, for clothes, for schools to re-open.

 Donors! You read it. Now pay for it:

http://www.irinnews.org/donors.aspx

Aid workers in Haiti have sent home all but one of the 33 children that US missionaries tried to take out of the country after the January earthquake.

One child is still waiting at the SOS Orphanage on Port-au-Prince’s outskirts for further verification of her parents’ identities.

Aid Frustration: ‘We’re racing against the clock’: Thousands waiting for food, water, medical care

By Marisol Bello and Donna Leinwand
PETIONVILLE, Haiti — Haitian physician Reginald Lubin wanted to help earthquake victims at a hospital in this suburb of Port-au-Prince on Sunday, but medical supplies and equipment were scarce.

“What would I say to the patient?” Lubin lamented. “Look at them and say, ‘You are hurt?’ “

“The government is decapitated,” Lubin said. “People come here to help, and they do not know what to do or where to go. This is terrible.”

The worldwide effort to rescue battered Haiti entered its second week today with thousands of frustrated Haitians saying they are still waiting for food, water and medical care and are worried about violence.

As the United States and other nations stepped up their efforts Sunday to get aid to millions of people in need, some aid groups said the effort was in disarray.

“I’m satisfied that we’re doing everything we can,” said Army Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, who heads the military effort and was at an outpost with the 82nd Airborne. “Is there frustration? Absolutely. We see it. We feel it. We understand it. … We need to do more, and we’re going to do more.”

In one example of the logjam occurring in Haiti, Doctors Without Borders said one of its cargo planes carrying an inflatable surgical hospital was blocked from landing Saturday at Port-au-Prince and diverted to the Dominican Republic, causing a 24-hour delay. A second plane landed Sunday.

Aircraft have been barred from landing if they can’t take off with the fuel they have on board, said George Hood of the Salvation Army.

“You have to fly in with enough fuel to get out,” he said. His group has 1 million meals waiting in Miami to be shipped once transit can be arranged.

Throughout the country, injured victims still await the arrival of doctors and medical supplies. Doctors Without Borders teams are working in five Port-au-Prince hospitals, but only two are fully functional. A third “operating theater” has been created for minor surgeries only.

Those lucky enough to escape injury face the rising threat of disease and death while awaiting food, water and medicine. Sunday, a makeshift camp in Petionville with 450 displaced people received its first aid since the earthquake: packets of crackers and bottles of water.

Clemente Dirre, 29, a mechanic, said aid has yet to reach his neighborhood. “People are dying. They are thirsty. They are hungry.”

In Dirre’s neighborhood and others, people asked the same question: When would aid arrive? Handwritten signs hung at the entrance to tent camps announced the obvious: “We need help.”

“The kids are barefoot. They are poor. They don’t have anyone to direct the aid people their way,” he said. “The problems are from the top.”

Obama administration officials in charge of the relief effort defended the decisions, noting the airport is the only major hub in Haiti.

“It’s a challenging, challenging situation,” U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Rajiv Shah said. “We’re aware that we’re racing against the clock.”

U.S. forces arrived over the weekend with more than 600,000 humanitarian rations. Keen said paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne delivered more than 70,000 bottles of water and 130,000 rations Saturday, a pace that should accelerate each day. More supplies are arriving at the airport than can be delivered because of transportation issues.

“As we move other equipment in here, we’ll be able to get more ground transportation to increase our tentacles out into the countryside,” Keen said.

U.S. officials also began distributing 250,000 liters of water to 52 distribution sites over the weekend. On Sunday, six water purification units arrived from Dubai, for a total of 10 since the earthquake hit.

Some relief agency officials say the first days of a disaster are always tough, particularly when aid workers have been affected by the disaster.

“Everybody here went through the earthquake,” said David Toycen, president of World Vision Canada, which has Haitian staffers who lost relatives and homes. “They are traumatized at some level. I’m reluctant to be overly critical.”

Caryl Stern, president of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, said Haiti’s density presents the opposite problem posed by the 2004 tsunami, spread among 14 countries. Unlike Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there are no nearby airports, hospitals or stores to use.

“None of that exists in Haiti,” Stern said. “I think they’re doing the absolute best they can with what they have to work with.”

Veterans of relief efforts and experts on the process say there’s a disconnect between an operation’s effectiveness and what people see on TV.

“You can’t mobilize that fast,” said Andrew Natsios, who headed the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2004 when the Indian Ocean tsunami killed nearly 230,000 people. “That does not mean the relief effort is not working. It simply means it takes time to put everything in place.”

Shah, the USAID administrator, told USA TODAY during a visit Saturday that he shares people’s frustrations, but he defended the response so far.

“We went ahead and identified what is needed and are working with the president of Haiti and with the United Nations to provide it,” Shah said.

Some private relief groups sympathize with U.S. officials and say everything possible is being done to reach victims. The problem, said Joy Portella of Mercy Corps, is that “no one can get in or out or move around” because of logistical problems.

“It’s hard to reach people,” said Henrietta Fore, USAID administrator in 2007-09. “The transportation is an enormous limitation.”

Jack Harrald, a Virginia Tech professor and expert in disaster management, said the problems begin with Haiti’s geography. “First of all, it’s an island,” he said. “It’s not like we can drive a bunch of 18-wheelers down there.”

With the main port decimated by the earthquake and the main airport slowly returning to life, all relief materials are “going through a very small pipeline,” Harrald said.

That would be the airport, which is operating without a tower and terminal that have been condemned. It has one runway. Despite that, U.S. military forces have supervised more than 600 takeoffs and landings in five days, said Col. Buck Elton, who arrived Wednesday to take charge of the airport. “As soon as one aircraft departs, we have another one arrive,” he said.

Roads are slowing aid down as well. Along Haiti’s eastern border with the Dominican Republic, only two roads are passable, said Ben Hemingway, director of international operations for the International Medical Corps. A bottleneck is forming as refugees stream toward the border. Dominican authorities, fearing an influx of refugees, have clamped down on border crossings.

“All of these things are slowing down their ability to process large convoys,” Hemingway said.

‘Going to get more difficult’

Government officials past and present agree on one thing: The problems will only mount. With the Haitian government severely hampered, a central question must be answered: Who’s in charge?

The Obama administration refuses to step forward, insisting it is helping Haiti and the United Nations, along with other international partners. But there’s little question it is playing the dominant role.

The United States has “very appropriately taken the lead internationally,” said Tom Ridge, the nation’s first secretary of Homeland Security. “There’s no country better positioned to help orchestrate it or lead it than the United States.”

With Port-au-Prince prisoners on the loose and residents desperate for food and water, safety is becoming an ever-present concern.

Just outside the Port-au-Prince cemetery’s gates Sunday, a young man shot three times lay dying on the sidewalk. Residents said he and three others had been shot by police for stealing. Three of the men died.

“They lined up all four and shot them. This one took three shots,” said Clifford Cadet, 15, who watched from across the street.

Lubin, the doctor in Petionville, said people are attacking others on streets and in parks that have become temporary homes.

“People are getting mad and worried,” he said. “Things are going to get out of hand. … It’s starting already. You will not give it to them? Fine, then they will come and take it.”

After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, hundreds of thousands of residents fled to Houston, Atlanta and other cities for shelter and services. In Haiti, there’s nowhere to go.

Former FEMA official Mark Ghilarducci, who responded to an earthquake in Kobe, Japan, in 1995, said military-style tent cities may be needed first.

“This is a very complicated situation because of the fact that Haiti’s so isolated,” he said. “There may be a segment that needs to be moved to another place in the world.”

Faced with all those problems, Kerline Auguste, 16, sees no hope for Haiti. She survived two days under the rubble of her house with her 18-month-old son; her parents and her son’s father perished.

“The only thing I dream about is leaving this country, because I have no hope in the future,” she said. “Even God can’t help us. The situation is too bad.”

Contributing: Jim Michaels and Ken Dilanian in Port-au-Prince; Mimi Hall in Washington; Richard Wolf and Oren Dorell in McLean, Va.

Port-au-A strong aftershock struck Haiti Wednesday, a week after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake that could have killed up to 200,000 people in the Caribbean nation.

Residents in the city’s outlying areas reported leaping from their beds after the early morning quake. Media reports from downtown Port-au-Prince spoke of fresh building collapses in the wake of the aftershock.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the 6.1-magnitude quake struck at 1103 GMT, with its epicentre some 60 km west of the capital. Its depth was recorded at 9.9 kilometres.

The aftershock comes as international aid efforts are in full swing in Haiti, one of the world’s poorest and most troubled nations.

Some estimates have put the death toll at up to 200,000 people from the initial quake.

USGS scientists have measured dozens of aftershocks since the devastating earthquake, including two that followed within the hour, measuring 5.9 and 5.5 on the Richter scale.

The quake struck at 4.53 p.m. (2153 GMT) Jan 12, some 15 km southwest of the city at a depth of 10 km.