Haiti is as dangerous for children as Gaza, UN report shows

Miami Herald

9 hours ago

Violence against children in Haiti increased by nearly 500% last year, according to a United Nations report, ranking the Caribbean nation as dangerous a place for children war-torn Gaza, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and Nigeria.
The U.N.'s Children in Armed Conflict report, which was released late Thursday, singled out the country's most powerful armed gang coalition for the increasing wave of children being maimed, killed and raped as armed gangs carry out coordinated attacks across the capital and beyond.
The staggering 490% increase between 2023 and 2024 in 'grave violations' is cited in the report, which added Haiti last year for the first time to its blacklist of countries that violate children's rights. Haiti now ranks third among countries that have seen the sharpest percentage increase in verified grave violations against children. The country ranked higher than Ukraine, which is actively in a war with Russia.
The U.N. was able to verify 2,269 grave violations against 1,373 children in both the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and the rice-growing Artibonite region. The violations included sexual violence, killings and attacks on schools and hospitals. The leading culprits behind the violations were armed gangs, most notably the powerful Viv Ansanm gang coalition, which for the first time has been cited in the report.
In May, the Trump administration designated Viv Ansanm and another gang operating in the country's Artibonite region, Gran Grif, as foreign and global terrorists. The U.N. official said should Gran Grif continue to survive, it could also soon find itself listed due to the atrocities it has been carrying out against poor rural farmers and their families.
The violations against children in Haiti are 'horrific,' a senior U.N. official said, stressing that the number of verified incidents is but the bare minimum —and not the maximum —of the horrors children are being subjected to. For example, rapes and sexual violence against children, particularly gang rape, saw a 35% increase globally in 2024.
The inclusion of Haiti in the U.N.'s report came after lobbying that what was occurring inside the country was more than just mere gang violence. Already this year, more than 2,600 people have been killed in gang-related violence as gangs not only threaten the collapse of the capital, but extend their control to other regions.
Still, independently verifying gangs' atrocities or even police operations isn't easy.
'Little information is coming out,' said the U.N. official, who noted they started the verification exercise in earnest last August. 'The U.N. has very little presence in there. The harbor doesn't work. The [main international] airport doesn't work. The border is closed.
'We simply cannot get the full impact of what is happening in Haiti, but we know it's horrific enough that it is already providing horrendous figures with the little information that we're able to get now,' the official added.
Alarming figures globally
Globally, the U.N. verified 41,370 incidents affecting some 22,495 children. The bulk of the incidents were committed in 2024 while about 5,149 were committed earlier but verified last year. Non-State armed groups were responsible for almost half of the violations, while government forces were the main perpetrator of the killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access, the report said.
The report's findings are the highest number of 'grave violations' against children since the United Nations started tracking violence against children almost 30 years ago.
'The cries of 22,495 innocent children who should be learning to read or play ball — but instead have been forced to learn how to survive gunfire and bombings— should keep all of us awake at night,' said the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, in a statement.
'This must serve as a wake-up call,' she added. 'We are at the point of no return.'
For the past year, U.N. officials have been sounding the alarm over Haiti's escalating armed gang violence, noting that children as young as 8 years old make up the ranks of criminal gangs and are being heavily recruited. Some are used as lookouts, while others are armed with matches and gasoline to set fire to homes and businesses during attacks. Others are armed with guns and told to fire shots.
'We ask that children may not be condemned to death'
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in the report says he's deeply concerned by the grave violations. And while he welcomes the creation of a task force by Haiti's transitional authorities to implement a handover protocol on the transfer and reintegration of children allegedly associated with armed gangs, the report itself raises questions about how Haiti's transition government and police are addressing the crisis, especially as they turn to the use of mercenaries and weaponized drones to go after armed gangs and their leaders.
The report notes that during the verification period, they were able to confirm the presence of only 26 boys who had been detained by the Haiti National Police for their alleged association with armed gangs, and they were being detained in a penitentiary where minors are held alongside adults under harsh conditions.
Given the reporting on the scale of youth involved in gang activities, there are unanswered questions about how children, who are the heart of the conflict in Haiti, are being treated once found with weapons.
'All over the planet, we're seeing more and more, not just forced but also voluntary recruitment of under age boys and girls for lack of options, lack of possibilities, sometimes it's the only livelihood, joining an armed group. And so the chances are very high that any governmental or U.N. force engaged in some type of stability or peace action on the ground is going to be fighting children,' the senior U.N. official said.
'We ask that children may not be condemned to death,' the official added, saying children in Haiti are getting swept up in the violence as both victims and forced perpetrators. 'For us, everybody, zero to 18 is a victim.'