Related: Slow Saturday Special: The MSM's Haitian Soap Opera
I guess I'll be needing to cover it everyday, huh?
"After quake, fear that orphans are at even greater risk in Haiti" by Ginger Thompson, New York Times | February 7, 2010
Authorities fear that some orphanages are taking advantage of the chaos to round up children in crisis and offer them for sale as indentured servants and sex slaves. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
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.
But Clinton and Bush love the place so much.
Where the f*** are those looting war criminals anyway, MSM?
Many centers 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.
And in the wake of an earthquake that has left this city in ruins, there is growing concern that an already strained system is being overwhelmed, that inadequate orphanages are taking in more children than they can handle and that vulnerable parents are turning to unregulated and often shady organizations for help.
Haitian and international authorities also 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 indentured servants and sex slaves.
Or even worse? Organ harvesting?
NYT pivots....
Haiti’s child welfare system was broken before the earthquake struck, a casualty of grinding poverty and ineffectual government. The earthquake intensified both problems even as it shattered homes and drove hundreds of thousands of people into the streets, multiplying the number of children in need of care.
But it took the arrest last weekend of 10 Americans caught trying to leave the country with 33 Haitian children to focus international attention on the nation’s most vulnerable population. While there is no evidence that the Americans, who said they were trying to rescue the children from the earthquake, meant any harm, the case exposed the holes in the system that traffickers exploit to trade on an estimated tens of thousands of Haitian children a year.
Sort of like an ORGANIZED THING that is NEVER REALLY BROUGHT to LIGHT in my AmeriKan "newspaper" -- and nor will it be now.
International children’s advocacy groups say the ease with which the Americans could drive into the capital and scoop up a busload of undocumented children points out the lack of safeguards in the system.
“This has called the world’s attention because it is the first clear piece of evidence that our fears have come true,’’ said Patricia Vargas, the regional coordinator for SOS Children’s Villages, which provides services to abandoned children around the world. “Our concern as an organization is how many other cases are out there that we are not aware of.’’
Yeah, in a most chilling and terrifying way.
The front line of the system is the orphanage, which in Haiti runs the gamut from large, well-equipped institutions with significant international financing to one-room hovels where a single woman in a poor slum cares for abandoned children as best she can. Most of the children living in them, the authorities said, are not orphans at all, but children whose parents are unable to provide for them.
But BANKSTERS are walking way with BILLIONS in BONUSES!
Many orphanages offer regular visiting hours for parents, and when their situations improve, parents are allowed to pick up their children and take them back home. But instead of protecting vulnerable children, the authorities fear that some orphanages have become tools of their exploitation.
“There are many so-called orphanages that have opened in the last couple of years that are not really orphanages at all,’’ said Frantz Thermilus, the chief of Haiti’s National Judicial Police. “They are fronts for criminal organizations that take advantage of people who are homeless and hungry. And with the earthquake they see an opportunity to strike in a big way.’’
Like a CIA FRONT ORGANIZATION (or who knows who else; Israel sure was in and out pdq)?
UNICEF estimates that number of trafficking victims in the tens of thousands of per year. The authorities said thousands of those trafficked were sold as servants for well-to-do Haitian families. Others are smuggled into the Dominican Republic to do domestic and agricultural work.
That can't be where all of them are going. Why don't you track 'em down, NYT?
In recent years, the government has tried to crack down on trafficking, establishing special police units to monitor children leaving the country’s airports or crossing its borders.
But authorities acknowledge that the efforts of a financially struggling government long plagued by corruption have proved little match for the highly organized, multimillion-dollar criminal networks.Yeah, that just really gets my sniffer going.
--more--"
Related: His nightmares have ended
Also see:
- Slow Saturday Special: Haitians Head From the Hills
- Slow Saturday Special: AmeriKan Military Providing Comfort to Haitians
Message: Aid effort and global government failed -- again!
Take a two-page tour if you don't believe me.
