Trafficking in Haitian children and adolescents has increased along the border of Dajabón province and most are transported to the city of Santiago, where they travel doing various activities.
They walk the streets with shoe polishers, others clean the windows of some vehicles at some intersections, but there are also those who are dedicated to ordering, collecting bottles, plastics and other objects that people throw away and sell.
Trafficking in children and adolescents is taking place despite military reinforcements ordered by the Dominican army and immigration authorities on the border between the two Caribbean countries.
Drama
Many of these children and teenagers spend the night in public places and sleep in abandoned buildings and other places.
Many times, agents of the Municipal and National Police intervened in a destroyed house and another house under construction located on Calle del Sol, near the intersection with Avenida Francia, which are abandoned and serve as a refuge for Haitian teenagers.
Santiago’s human rights activist Jorge Galván told Listín Diario that the problem is dramatic and an urgent solution must be found, as more arrive every day.
Exposed
According to Galván, when these minors are transferred from Haiti, they are exposed to all kinds of abuse by traffickers.
While a migration officer from the northern area explained to Listín Diario that there are international treaties and organizations that prohibit the expulsion of Haitian and adolescent children and adolescents from other nations who spend the night on the streets of Santiago.
He said they could be collected and housed in the National Council for Children and Adolescents (Conani), but not repatriated, despite the fact that they were not born in the Dominican Republic and are victims of mafias operating in Haiti in collusion with Dominicans.
Haitian professor Jean Baptiste, former leader of the Civil Protection organization in northeastern Haiti, based in Cap Haitien, has proclaimed that child trafficking in the Dominican Republic is serious.
At the same time, he complained that many of them are light objects for “poteas”, as traffickers in Haiti are known, to abuse them mercilessly.
He pointed out that, unlike the Dominican Republic, in Haiti, juvenile delinquents have been sent to prisons along with adults who have abused them.
But because of pressure from his country’s entities and international organizations, he managed to get these children out of prisons and, since they have no relatives to shelter them, they spend the night on the streets of their country, which criminals take advantage of. to traffic them on Dominican territory.
Operation
Similarly, he said that now they do not return them from the Dominican Republic, but that there are people, many of them of Haitian origin, who use and exploit them on the streets for profit.
Lawyer José Alberto Peña, vice president of the Coordinator of Popular Organizations in Southern Santiago, reported that, along with representatives of other entities, they rescued seven Haitian children, three girls and four boys, who were exploited for work by his compatriots.
The children lived in the impoverished area known as the Cañada del Diablo.
“They (Haitians) used to ask them on the streets, clean their shoes, sell flowers, polish the windows of vehicles at traffic lights, we expelled these aggressors from our area and handed over the children to the authorities,” he commented.
An activist from Acción Callejera said that they are monitoring these children, but that so far they have identified 14, who are exposed to the danger of being infected with Covid-19 and various abuses.