Haitian children forced into gangs amid hunger crisis, report reveals
More and more Haitian children are joining the armed gangs that terrorize Haiti and control over 90 percent of the territory of Port-au-Prince, a city with a population of over a million. They are forced to do so by the hunger raging in the country, as stated in the report released on Wednesday by Save the Children.
The report from Save the Children, unveiled on Wednesday, alerts to a rising number of children in Haiti joining the armed groups that intimidate and control over 90 percent of the territory in Port-au-Prince, home to more than a million people. The primary catalyst for this grave scenario is the widespread hunger in the nation.
In the report, we find the harrowing detail: "Some of these children have killed and robbed just to obtain food."
Desperate children
The document sheds light on the desperate measures that starving underage children from Haiti, who join gangs comprised of professional killers, are driven to. Save the Children's report highlights the grim reality that more and more families in Haiti are forced to survive on only one meal a day.
In conversations with representatives of the organization, single mothers have disclosed that they see no alternative for themselves and their children but to engage in offering sexual services to secure their basic needs.
The report draws a parallel between the current dire situation in Haiti and that of 2021, following the assassination of the country's president, which sparked a "power crisis." According to the report's findings, "the intensity of violence in Haiti has soared by 140 percent" compared to the previous year. From the start of the year until the end of March, over eighty minors have been killed, acting within armed groups.
Currently, between 30 to 50 percent of the gangs terrorizing the eleven-million-strong Caribbean nation include minors in their ranks, who have joined either voluntarily or through force.
Save the Children is urgently appealing to global leaders to take immediate steps to safeguard the children and youth of Haiti. This appeal is directed at those who possess the influence and the means to facilitate the tragic circumstances faced by the country's youth.
