12677: Article: UNICEF: Haiti Child Workers Smuggled (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <dgcraig@att.net>


UNICEF: Haiti Child Workers Smuggled
August 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:42 p.m. ET

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- About 2,500
Haitian children are smuggled illegally into the Dominican
Republic each year to work as manual laborers or beggars, a
UNICEF report said Saturday.

Traffickers from both countries earn up to $80 for each
child they bring into the Dominican Republic, which shares
the island of Hispanola with Haiti, according to a report
by UNICEF and the Geneva-based International Organization
for Migration.

Once in the Dominican Republic, the youngest children are
usually forced to beg while the older ones are put to work
as farm hands or construction workers, the report said.

The children usually receive food, but rarely are allowed
to keep their earnings. Some children are smuggled with
their parents' consent, the report said.

The report -- researched between November 2001 and February
2002 -- found that some Dominican border officials were
collecting between $1 to $2.50 per child from smugglers to
let them in.

Dominican Attorney General Virgilio Bello Rosa on Saturday
said he would order an investigation into the trade and
urge Dominican farm owners not employ Haitian minors.

About 600,000 undocumented Haitian migrants live in the
this country of 9 million, according to the Dominican
Foreign Ministry.

Haitians found without documents are sent back to Haiti,
where most of the 8.2 million people live in absolute
poverty.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Dominican-Haiti-Children.html?ex=1030062381&ei=1&en=7c41cd3f6098ca81
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company