The United Nations has reported that children now comprise about half of the membership of Haitian gangs, as violence and political and economic instability continue to roil the Caribbean nation.
On Thursday, the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell, announced the “alarming” statistics, as she and other officials pushed for more support in Haiti.
“We estimate that children currently account for a staggering 50 percent of the members of the armed groups active today,” Russell said.
“Children are being forced into combat roles, directly participating in armed confrontations. Others are being used as couriers, lookouts, porters to carry weapons or are exploited for domestic labour.”
She added that the number of child recruits appears to be rapidly rising. Child participation in gang activities, including recruitment, had surged by 700 percent in the first three months of the year, compared with the same period last year.
That coincided with an increase in the number of human rights violations committed against children in Haiti.
In 2024, the UN reported more than 2,000 grave violations against minors, an increase of 500 percent from the previous year.
Criminal organisations and gangs have grown increasingly powerful in Haiti, particularly in the aftermath of the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.
The resulting violence has forced nearly 1.3 million Haitians to flee their homes, half of them estimated to be young people.
The UN has previously warned that gangs have gained “near-total control” of the capital, Port-au-Prince, with as much as 90 percent of the city under their influence.
The result has been blocked roads, limited public services and skyrocketing costs for essential supplies, including food.
Haitian gangs have long pointed to political corruption as a reason for seeking increased power and territorial control. But human rights abuses have been growing: From October to June alone, nearly 5,000 people were killed as a result of gang violence.
Both the Haitian government and the international community have struggled to address the widespread bloodshed.
In October 2023, the UN Security Council approved a Kenya-led mission to support Haiti’s police, but those forces have struggled to make an impact and have suffered from lack of funding and resources.
Critics have also feared the prospect of foreign intervention, given the country’s disastrous history with colonial and military occupation.
At a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday, United States Ambassador Dorothy Shea said her country and Panama would put forward a draft resolution to establish a security force aimed at confronting the gangs.
It is unclear how that force would intersect with the existing UN-backed security force.
But the Haitian government has recently sought greater collaboration with private security firms such as Vectus Global, run by the private military entrepreneur Erik Prince, who has ties to US President Donald Trump.
The UN reported in August that a proposed response plan to address the crisis in Haiti had received less than 10 percent of its funding goal.
Despite the severity of the violence roiling Haiti, migrants and refugees fleeing the turmoil have struggled to find safety in other countries.
The US announced in June that it would move to revoke protections for Haitians living in the country, opening them up to the possibility of deportation.
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