Haitian gangs recruit starving children to fight security forces, human rights group finds Global development

Armed gangs in Haiti are recruiting starving children to swell their ranks ahead of an expected long and bloody battle with international security forces, a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) has found.

Armed groups – which control most of Haiti – are luring hundreds if not thousands of impoverished children to arms with offers of food and shelter, the rights groups said.

According to HRW, up to 30% of Haitian gang members are now children who are forced into illegal activities as armed soldiers or spies or exploited for sex.

“All the sources we consulted, including children linked to criminal groups, told us that more children are joining the gangs and that they are preparing to deploy more personnel to fight the international security forces and the Haitian police “The report’s author, Nathalye Cotrino, told the Guardian. “Ultimately, they plan to use children as ‘human shields’ if operations against criminal groups begin in their controlled areas.”

Haiti has fallen into greater chaos and despair since the assassination of its President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. Across the country, 5.4 million people regularly go hungry and 2.7 million – including half a million children – are under the control of violent armed groups.

Kenya sent the first contingent of a United Nations-backed security force in June to restore order in the Caribbean country. However, momentum has stalled due to a lack of funding, allowing armed groups to bolster their forces in anticipation of protracted firefights in the area.

Last week, the Gran Grif gang massacred 70 people, including some children, in the western town of Pont-Sondé while moving uncontrollably from house to house, executing civilians and setting fire to buildings in what the gang’s leader, Luckson Elan, described as Retaliation referred to civilians who do not prevent police and vigilantes from killing his fighters. Six thousand people were forced to flee the agricultural city, where rival factions are fighting for control of the country’s breadbasket.

Gang leaders posted videos on TikTok showing glamorous lives full of cash, women and flashy jewelry to attract impressionable teenagers, Cotrino said.

“This attracts the attention of children who live in poverty, are often homeless and go for days without food. They see it as their only way out of misery,” she said.

Children are often exploited as informants because they are less conspicuous, but are also forced to commit extortion and violent crimes such as kidnapping and murder.

Girls are often forced to cook, clean and offer their bodies to gang leaders.

Children interviewed by HRW said they joined the gangs when they were desperate and hungry, but once they picked up a machine gun there was no way out.

A 14-year-old member of the Tibwa gang – one of more than 200 criminal groups vying for control of Haiti – told HRW: “One time they told me to blindfold someone we were trying to kidnap. When I refused, they hit me over the head with a baseball bat and said if I didn’t they would kill me.”

HRW has called on the government to launch programs to protect children and help them demobilize and reintegrate into society.

Aid groups on the ground say preventing minors from being lured into gangs is a challenge as Haiti’s government services have all but collapsed, hunger continues to rise and schools are often closed.

A humanitarian worker at an education center on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince said it was easy to identify the children once they fell into the orbit of criminal groups, but it was far more difficult to get them out.

“Generally the children come in with new clothes such as shoes or jackets or with small amounts of money,” the helper said. “They also start to withdraw from activities and start missing days – first a day or two and then a week – if they come back at all. When we notice this, we immediately start a conversation with the child to find out what is going on. The reaction is almost always the same. They say, ‘I have to make a living and they, the gangs, are the only option.'”