Helping Children Escape the Sex Trade

Rachel Lloyd, an escapee from the sex trade, wrote a book called Girls Like Us that tells about her experiences as a child sex worker.  She is also the founder of a program in New York that helps children survive sexual exploitation:  Girls Education and Mentoring Services (GEMS).  Ms. Lloyd was recently a guest on the Diane Rehm Show discussing child exploitation.  You can listen to that interview or read the show's transcript here.

Bleak Portrait of Haiti Orphanages Raises Fears

From the New York Times:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The floors were concrete and the windows were broken.

There was no electricity or running water. Lunch looked like watery grits. Beds were fashioned from sheets of cardboard. And the only toilet did not work.

But the Foyer of Patience here is like hundreds of places that pass as orphanages for thousands of children in the poorest country in the hemisphere. Many are barely habitable, much less licensed. They have no means to provide real schooling or basic medical care, so children spend their days engaged in mindless activities, and many die from treatable illnesses.

Haiti’s child welfare system was broken before the earthquake struck. But as the quake shattered homes and drove hundreds of thousands of people into the streets, the number of children needing care grew exponentially.

Chronic problems — like inadequate services, overwhelming poverty and shady orphanages — have only intensified, while the authorities fear that some of the less scrupulous orphanages are taking advantage of the chaos to round up children in crisis and offer them for sale as servants and sex slaves.

continue story - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/world/americas/07trafficking.html?ref=world

UNICEF: Haiti Orphans at Risk from Traffickers

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haitian children made orphans by this month's catastrophic earthquake or separated from their parents face a growing threat from child traffickers or illicit adoptions, the government and aid groups say.

They fear unscrupulous traffickers may try to exploit the chaos and social turmoil following the January 12 quake to spirit defenseless infants out of the impoverished country through the airport or across the land border with the Dominican Republic.

A police unit tasked with protecting minors has sent officers to the border but officials said that like every other Haitian institution, the unit was hit hard by the earthquake that killed at least 120,000 people and probably many more.

"We are very concerned that there are increasing reports that children are being picked up and trafficked out of the country," said Kent Page, a spokesman for the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF). But he had no details of specific cases.

Authorities also fear that legitimate aid groups may have flown earthquake orphans out of the country for adoption before efforts to find their parents had been exhausted.

As a result, the Haitian government last week halted these types of adoptions. "There is no question that either NGOs (non-governmental organizations) or institutions of any kind can take children off the streets (for adoption) and say that they are orphans," said Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, expressing his fears that this might be happening.

There are no reliable estimates of the number of parentless and lost children at risk in Haiti's quake-shattered capital Port-au-Prince. Hungry, homeless minors fending for themselves in the city are a common sight.

Around 700 children who lost touch with their parents during the quake have been registered and placed in camps and efforts at reunification are under way, said UNICEF's Page.

But in an indication of the scale of the problem, a Haitian children's charity working in the Delmar 31 neighborhood of the capital said it had identified 3,000 children that it considered in danger.

Some joined gangs of looters last week, smashing into stores in the city's main commercial district in search of food and goods to sell, said Alveus Prospere, the president of the Organization for a Better Future for Children charity.
Many others have been taken in by relatives or neighbors now living in makeshift camps where food is scarce, he said.

ADMINISTRATIVE OVERSIGHT VS HUMAN NEED

A U.S. Christian charity, For His Glory Outreach, flew 80 Haitian children to the United States on Saturday for adoption and plans to take out 29 more in the coming days, according to Michael Gibson, a member of the charity's board.

The children lived at the House of the Children of God orphanage in the Haitian capital before their departure and all had the necessary paperwork signed by Haitian authorities before the quake, he said.

Even before the quake, economic pressure and grinding hardship in what was already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere provided a powerful incentive for some Haitian parents to seek adoption for their children.

Child protection experts fear the Haitian government's problems in maintaining control and oversight in the country, now hugely exacerbated by the quake, could also give freer rein to well-meaning potential adopters willing to cut corners.
For His Glory has had no contact with the Haitian government since the quake, said Gibson, whose family adopted Haitian twins in 2007.

"I don't believe there is a (functioning) Haitian government," he told Reuters in an interview.

Most of the children at the orphanage, who have been sleeping on dirty mattresses in the yard since the quake, have parents alive and retain contact with them, so they are not technically orphans at all.

Twelve-year-old Judlanda Toussaint came to the orphanage three years ago because her parents could not afford to look after her, according to workers at the institution.

"I want to go to America so I can help my family back home," said Toussaint.

-By Matthew Bigg for Reuters News Service
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60O2A120100125

Today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day

Every 2 minutes, a child is forced into slavery somewhere in the world, robbing them of their childhood forever.
One of the girls we were able to help, Sveta, has grown up to become a veterinarian. But her life started with an unthinkable choice...her parents decided that they had enough girls already and abandoned her to the orphanage.
Read more about Sveta: http://tomdavis.typepad.com/tom_daviss_blog/2010/01/htad2010.html
Please encourage others to take action against trafficking, and let others know that you are doing something to fight for the millions of children who have lost their childhoods to human trafficking.

For the Fatherless,
Tom
CEO, HopeChest

Child Trafficking in Liberia

Here's a story from Frontpage Africa about how international adoption has led to child trafficking in Liberia.
http://www.frontpageafrica.com/newsmanager/anmviewer.asp?a=8387&z=2