12678: Haitian child workers smuggled into Dominican Republic (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Antoine Blanc <amprblanc@yahoo.fr>

UNICEF report: 2,500 Haitian child workers smuggled into Dominican Republic
each year
Sat Aug 10, 8:09 PM ET
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) Aug 10, 2002 - About 2,500 Haitian
children are smuggled illegally into the Dominican Republic each year to
work as manual laborers and street beggars, sometimes with the complicity of
their parents and Dominican soldiers, a UNICEF report said Saturday.
Traffickers from both countries smuggle the minors across the shared border
into the Dominican Republic, where they are forced to work as farm hands,
construction workers and street peddlers, according to a report prepared by
the New York-based United Nations Children's Fund and the Geneva-based
International Organization for Migration.
Some children are smuggled without their parents' consent, but others are
taken with their parents' agreement, the report said.
Traffickers earn up to 400 Haitian dollars (dlrs 80) for each child they
bring into the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispanola with
Haiti, the report said.
The report - researched between November 2001 and February 2002 - found that
Dominican border officials were allowing smugglers entry from Haiti in
exchange for payments ranging from 20 to 50 Dominican pesos (dlrs 1 to 2.50)
per child.
Once across the border, Haitian boys and girls as young as 5 years old are
usually forced to beg on the streets, while older youths are sent to work on
farms or construction sites, the report said.
The children usually stay in the country for up to five months and receive
food, but rarely are allowed to keep their earnings.
Upon learning of the report, Dominican Attorney General Virgilio Bello Rosa
told the Associated Press he would order an investigation into the trade and
coordinate efforts with Haitian authorities to capture those responsible.
Bello also said he would urge Dominican farm owners not employ Haitian
minors.
About 600,000 undocumented Haitian migrants live in the this
Spanish-speaking country of 9 million, according to the Dominican Foreign
Ministry.
Haitians found without documents are immediately sent back to Haiti, where
most of the 8.2 million people live in absolute poverty.
Copyright (c) 2002 The Associated Press.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020811/ap_wo_en_po/domin
ican_haiti_smuggled_children_1