Haiti’s gangs are recruiting child soldiers, says human rights group | News about armed groups

Boys and girls driven into gangs by hunger are abused and forced into criminal activity, Human Rights Watch warns.

Haiti’s powerful armed groups are increasingly recruiting children into their ranks as the humanitarian crisis deepens, a global human rights group warns, with girls being sexually abused and forced into domestic work.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of children “driven by hunger and poverty” have joined gangs in recent months and been forced into criminal acts ranging from extortion and looting to killing and kidnapping, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report published on Wednesday.

Boys are often used as informants, trained in the use of weapons and ammunition and deployed in clashes with police, the report said.

One of the boys interviewed, 14-year-old Michel, said he joined a gang when he was eight. “I had no parents and lived on the streets,” he told HRW.

“Usually I was running errands or participating in roadblocks. There were four other children in the group, 13 or 11 years old.”

Haiti has been rocked by escalating violence since February, when gangs carried out attacks on prisons and other government facilities in the capital Port-au-Prince. According to the United Nations, the unrest spread to other parts of the Caribbean nation and led to the displacement of more than 700,000 people.

According to testimonies collected by HRW, girls are raped, forced to cook and clean for gang members, and are often abandoned once they become pregnant.

“Gabriel, the Brooklyn gang leader [in Cite Soleil]He asks his henchmen to bring him a virgin girl every month. If the boss does this, there is no way to stop others from doing the same,” revealed a humanitarian worker at the New York-based group.

“State absent”

According to HRW, “severe hunger” was the main reason the children joined the criminal groups.

“They said there was no state, there was no police in their neighborhood and they had no legal economic or social opportunities to earn a living, buy food or access basic needs,” the report said.

Haiti’s gangs have expanded their influence in recent years as state institutions have been crippled by a lack of funding and political crises. Gangs now control areas where 2.7 million people live, including half a million children.

According to UN estimates, around a third of gang members are children. According to HRW, the criminal groups control nearly 80 percent of Port-au-Prince and are expanding into other areas.

According to the report, gangs are increasingly using popular social media apps to attract recruits. The leader of the Village de Dieu gang is a rapper and publishes music videos of his soldiers. HRW said it had a special unit to teach children how to use weapons and set up checkpoints.

The human rights group said it interviewed 58 people in July in Port-au-Prince, including children linked to criminal groups, humanitarian workers, diplomats and representatives of Haitian civil society and U.N. agencies, as well as another 20 remotely.

A year ago, the United Nations approved Haiti’s request for a multinational police mission to help the country’s police fight the gangs, but it has only been partially deployed.

HRW outlined several measures for both the government and the international community to address the deep instability, including providing more resources to security forces, ensuring children can eat and go to school, and providing rehabilitation measures for recruits .