Left behind: Charities fear for children like Joseph Lawson, 11, who have lost their families in the earthquake Haitian children orphaned or separated from their families by the earthquake face a growing threat from child traffickers, aid agencies warned today.
There are mounting fears that defenceless children wandering the streets of Haiti are being swept up by child smugglers and spirited over the country's borders either by air or by land into the Dominican Republic.
'We are very concerned there are increasing reports that children are being picked up and trafficked out of the country,' said Kent Page, a spokesman for the UN Children's Fund.
Authorities also fear that legitimate aid groups may have flown earthquake orphans out of the country for adoption before efforts to find their parents had been exhausted.
As a result, the Haitian government last week halted these types of adoptions.
'There is no question that either NGOs (non-governmental organizations) or institutions of any kind can take children off the streets (for adoption) and say that they are orphans,' said Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, expressing his fears that this might be happening.
Earlier this week, Save The Children and World Vision urged European Union foreign ministers to announce an immediate ban on any new adoptions into Europe of children who have been separated from their relatives in the devastated country.
Aid agencies and the government must be given the chance to conduct full and exhaustive searches to reunite families following the earthquake before any international adoption ban could be lifted, they said.
The lucky ones? Children play in one of the tent cities that have sprung up in Port-au-Prince to house the thousands made homeless by the earthquake. Many children orphaned in the disaster are living in the tent cities with relatives - but many are alone, vulnerable to child traffickers and illicit adoptionsA spokesman for Save the Children said: 'The chaos of the earthquake, which destroyed records as well as infrastructure, means that children could be taken out of the country without proper checks going ahead.
'It can costs thousands of pounds to internationally adopt a child yet that money could help a whole school of children remain in their communities.'
Jasmine Whitbread, the charity's chief executive, said: 'Many families in Europe will see the suffering of Haitian children who have been separated from their parents, and want to do something to help.
'But trying to adopt children who most likely still have parents or relatives alive and are desperate to be reunited with them is not the solution.
'Taking children out of the country would permanently separate children from their families - a separation that would compound the acute trauma they are already suffering and inflict long-term damage on their chances of recovery.'
Orphan Isabell Sofia lays on a hospital cot at UMH, a hospital constructed by the University of Miami at the airport in Port-au-Prince, last week. She is in hospital and has lost her parents - but she is safe from child traffickersWorld Vision chief executive Justin Byworth added: 'Children should not be leaving Haiti at this stage except with surviving family members or if adoptions already in process have full required legal documents.
'Thousands of children have been separated from their families and primary caregivers due to the earthquake and more than half a million children were already separated either living on the streets or in orphanages, or working as restaveks (domestic servants) in private homes away from their families.
'We would urge EU ministers to push for the rapid establishment of a public complaints and response mechanism within Haiti for reporting and responding to sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking'
A police unit tasked with protecting minors has sent officers to the borders - but officials said that like every other Haitian institution, the unit was hit hard by the earthquake that killed at least 150,000 people and probably many more.
Distress: Some children may have been flown out of the country for adoption before proper efforts were made to find their parentsThere are no reliable estimates of the number of parentless and lost children at risk in Haiti's quake-shattered capital Port-au-Prince.
Hungry, homeless minors fending for themselves in the city are a common sight.
Around 700 children who lost touch with their parents during the quake have been registered and placed in camps and efforts at reunification are under way, said UNICEF.
source: dailymail