Haiti’s Hunger Trap | Human Rights Watch

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The rampant insecurity in Haiti can be summed up in some shocking statistics.

Criminal groups control nearly 80 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince and the surrounding region and are expanding into other areas. About 2.7 million people live under their control. Another number stands out: experts at least estimate 30 percent of criminal gang members are children.

But you have to go beyond the numbers to understand the scale of the horrors here.

Child gang members are recruited as young as ten years old and may start out as informants or running errands, but soon many of them are carrying guns, looting, extorting and kidnapping. If they refuse to participate, the children are mistreated, usually with beatings and death threats. Girls are particularly at risk of sexual violence.

What drives children into violent gangs in the first place is often hunger and poverty. Abandoned by the state, without food, education and health care, these children find happiness in criminal groups only source of livelihood and shelter. In other words: it’s about survival.

A 16-year-old from Port-au-Prince said he joined a criminal organization when he was 14:

“Before [joining]I lived with my mother… [A]When I was home there was no food. But when I was with [the group]I could eat.”

Haiti is in a hunger trap: crime drives poverty; Poverty drives crime. And at the moment the situation seems to be getting worse.

Criminal groups apparently have increased the recruitment of children in response to law enforcement operations by the new international presence, the Multinational Security Support Mission and the Haitian National Police. Hundreds, if not thousands, of children, driven by hunger and poverty, have joined criminal groups in recent months.

Escaping this downward spiral will obviously be neither quick nor easy, but Haiti’s interim government should focus particularly on children, a new HRW report highlights. Authorities must focus on ensuring protection and access to essential goods and services such as education.

While authorities hold those responsible for abuses accountable, they must also provide pathways for rehabilitation and reintegration so that children can safely exit gangs and lead lives afterward.

In summary, Children need opportunities to survive outside of criminal groupsand the authorities must help the children find them.