The trade in Haitian children and adolescents has increased along the border of Dajabón province, and most are transported to the city of Santiago, where they roam for various activities.
They walk down the street with shoe polish drawers, others clean car windows at some intersections, but there are also those who are dedicated to ordering, collecting bottles, plastics and other items that people dump and can sell.
The trafficking of children and adolescents is taking place despite the military reinforcement ordered by the Dominican military and immigration authorities on the border between the two Caribbean countries.
Drama
Many of these children and adolescents also spend the night in public places and sleep in abandoned buildings and other places.
On many occasions, municipal and national police officers have intervened in a destroyed house and another under construction located on Calle del Sol, almost at the intersection with Avenida Francia, which are deserted and serve as a refuge for Haitian adolescents.
Santiago’s human rights activist Jorge Galván told Listín Diario that the problem is dramatic and that a solution urgently needs to be sought as more come every day.
Exposed
According to Galván, when these minors are transferred from Haiti, they are exposed to all kinds of abuse by human traffickers.
While an official from Migration in the Northern Zone explained to Listín Diario that there are international treaties and organizations that prohibit the expulsion of Haitian children and adolescents and from other countries who spend the night on the streets of Santiago.
He stated that they can be collected and housed in the National Council for Children and Adolescents (Conani), but cannot be repatriated despite not being born in the Dominican Republic and being victims of mafias operating in Haiti in consultation with Dominicans.
Haitian professor Jean Baptiste, former leader of the Civil Protection organization of the Northeast of Haiti based in Cap Haitien, stated that the trafficking of children to the Dominican Republic is serious.
At the same time, he complained that many of them are easy objects for the “poteas”, as human traffickers in Haiti are known, to abuse them mercilessly.
He emphasized that, unlike in the Dominican Republic, teenagers who commit crimes in Haiti were sent to prison along with adults who abused them.
But that, under pressure from entities in his country and international organizations, he has succeeded in expelling these children from prisons and since they have no relatives to take them in, they spend the night on the streets of their country and profit there criminals from. to transport them to Dominican territory.
Operation
Likewise, he said that they are not now returning them from the Dominican Republic, but that there are people, many of them of Haitian descent, who are using them and exploiting them on the street to make a profit.
The lawyer José Alberto Peña, vice president of the coordinator of popular organizations in the south of Santiago, reported that they, along with representatives of other entities, have rescued seven Haitian children, three girls and four boys, who were sent to work by his fellow countrymen. exploited.
The children lived in the impoverished sector known as Cañada del Diablo.
“They (Haitians) asked them to clean shoes, sell flowers, polish car windows at traffic lights, we drove these abusers from our area and we turned the children over to the authorities,” he said.
An activist from the Acción Callejera organization said they are monitoring these children, but have so far identified 14 who are exposed to the risk of becoming infected with Covid-19 and various forms of abuse.