UNICEF warns that child recruitment by armed groups in Haiti tripled last year

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The recruitment of children by armed groups in Haiti tripled last year as poverty and violence deepens across the troubled Caribbean country, according to a new UNICEF report released Thursday. The surge comes as gang violence displaces a record 1.4 million people across Haiti — more than half of them children whom experts say are left exposed and vulnerable. “The extent of the increase definitely is a surprise,” said Geeta Narayan, UNICEF’s representative in Haiti. “That’s devastating.” The United Nations estimates that 30% to 50% of members of armed groups are children, with some as young as 9 years old being recruited, she said in a phone interview. “The younger the child, the more you can control them,” she said. “They have less ability to fight back, to be disruptive. … You can coerce them to do horrible things.” The U.N. Secretary General is expected to provide a breakdown of how many children were recruited last year in his annual report on Haiti in upcoming months. Gangs that control an estimated 90% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as swaths of land in the country’s central region, have become heavily dependent on children, experts said.