Plan Leads Child Trafficking Prevention In Haiti

Plan is taking the lead in the fight to protect orphans and other vulnerable children at risk of trafficking after the Haiti quake. We are one of the lead agencies working with the UN task force on child protection, and we have been appointed by a commission of aid agencies to lead an anti-trafficking taskforce.

Engaging young people:

Plan Canada's Steve Theobald reports from Haiti: "There are many experts in Haiti right now helping with relief efforts, and their help is sorely needed. But many will be gone in a month. That is why we are using our experts to train locals to work with children. It is their community and they are not going anywhere."

Beyond the issue of trafficking, protecting and counselling children is increasingly important. In the capital city, Port-au-Prince, Plan is training community volunteers to help children cope with emotional trauma and physical issues, such as mobility challenges. And in Jacmel, Plan is set to begin hiring crews of young people to help remove rubble.

Focus on children:

Plan's work on child protection in Haiti focuses on community-based protection programs. When children are separated, unaccompanied or orphaned, our first priority is to reunite them with family - including extended family. For children who have already endured so much, we don't want to cause additional trauma.

With many schools destroyed by the quake, Plan is sourcing large tents for temporary classrooms to get kids back to school. "Plan is part of a group assessing the entire education sector to determine the number of schools damaged and teachers available so we can help to reopen schools as soon as possible," says Theobald.

A long-term view:

Plan staff continue to distribute emergency food and shelter across quake-ravaged Haiti, but are also now developing and executing longer-term initiatives in consultation with experts in education, health, engineering, water and sanitation, psycho-social support experts and logisticians.

For the people occupying makeshift tent cities across Haiti, sanitation is a huge concern. We are implementing programs to build latrines in Port-au-Prince. "Plan is also dispatching a civil engineer to Jacmel to design an appropriate intervention, especially since many of these tents are on private land, complicating the matter," says Theobald.

You can help:

Please make a donation right now to help the children and families in Haiti, and to make your donation go twice as far. Through the Canadian International Development Agency [CIDA], the Canadian government will match all contributions made between January 12 and February 12, 2010.

To those who have already donated, we offer our sincere thanks on behalf of the children and their families.

Sponsored children in Haiti:

Plan staff are currently focusing on providing emergency relief, and are unable to provide news on individual sponsored children at this time. We will update this website with information as it comes in, but it will be some time before we have news on specific children. Read a note from our Regional Director to those who sponsor a child in Haiti.

For more information, visit plancanada.

Plan is a global movement for change, mobilizing millions of people around the world to support social justice for children in developing countries. For more information, visit Plancanada.Ca.