Gangs in Haiti enlist more children as troops

As near-famine conditions compel males to pick up firearms and girls are sexually exploited and pushed into domestic work, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that armed gangs in Haiti are increasingly enlisting minors into their ranks.

The organization, which promotes human rights around the world, claimed to have recently spoken with six kids who were involved in gangs. All of them stated that they wanted to leave and had joined because they were hungry and that gangs were frequently their only source of money, food, or shelter.

Boys are often used as informants, trained to use weapons and ammunition, and deployed in clashes against the police, HRW said. It cited the case of a boy called Michel, an orphan who was recruited six years ago when he was 8 and living on the streets and was given a loaded Kalashnikov.

Girls are raped and forced to cook and clean for gang members, the report said, and often discarded once they become pregnant.

Haiti’s powerful gangs have been expanding their influence in recent years while state institutions have been paralyzed by a lack of funds and political crises. Gangs now control territory where 2.7 million people live, including half a million children.

As they have grown, the gangs have ramped up child recruitment, said HRW. About a third of gang members are children, according to estimates by the United Nations, which has also warned of boys being used for killings and to attack institutions, and girls being forced into exploitative sexual relations and killed in broad daylight for refusing to do so.

HRW said the criminal groups are increasingly using popular social media apps to attract recruits. The leader of the Village de Dieu gang, for instance, is a rapper and publishes well-polished music videos of his soldiers. The report said he has a specialized unit to train children how to handle weapons and set up checkpoints.

The UN approved Haiti’s request for a security mission to help the Caribbean country’s police fight the gangs a year ago, but so far, the mission has only partially deployed.