An elderly wheelchair-bound woman collects a bottle of water distributed by UN peacekeepers, in Port-au-Prince

5 March 2010 – A working group comprising United Nations experts has been created to look into the situation of Haitians with disabilities, who have been disproportionately affected by January’s catastrophic earthquake.

Today’s announcement comes after a group of UN human rights experts last month appealed for the needs of the disabled in Haiti to be included in the relief, recovery and reconstruction processes following the magnitude-7.0 earthquake.

The 12 January quake killed up to 200,000 people, injured many others and left one third of the country’s nine million people in need of aid.

The decision to set up the new working group was made by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities during its recent meeting in Geneva from 22 to 26 February.

It underscored that under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, “States are to take all necessary measures to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in situations of risk and natural disaster like the occurrence of this earthquake.”

The new body will also look into the situation of people with disabilities in other countries affected by devastating natural disasters, including Chile, where it is estimated that 2 million people were impacted by last Saturday’s magnitude-8.8 quake.

Early last month, the Committee stressed in a news release that persons with disabilities must not become “the forgotten ones” during the emergency response and the reconstruction of Haiti.

Its current chairperson, Mohammed Al-Tarawneh, said that “while relief workers are struggling to provide aid to the people of Haiti and while the situation remains difficult for everyone, persons with disabilities are particularly affected by the crisis,” especially if their caregivers have been killed or injured.

The 12-member Committee, tasked with monitoring the Convention, urged Haiti to ensure that persons with disabilities fully participate in the decision-making process regarding social and economic reconstruction and that their long-term development needs be taken into account.

The Convention, which entered into force in May 2008 and has so far been endorsed by 144 countries, is the culmination of years of global efforts to ensure that the rights of the world’s estimated 650 million persons with disabilities are guaranteed and protected.

It asserts the rights to education, health, work, adequate living conditions, freedom of movement, freedom from exploitation and equal recognition before the law for persons with disabilities.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported today that its partners are handing out coupons for the next round of food distribution – including rice, beans and salt – for some 2 million people, set to kick off tomorrow in the capital, Port-au-Prince. The agency and its partners have already provided food for some 4.3 million people since the earthquake.

Although Haiti’s rainy season typically starts in April and peaks in May, early floods have already hit the country’s south, affecting 4,000 families and killing 7,100 heads of cattle, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

The Office warned that with the main planting season set to kick off this month, only 12 per cent of the agricultural funds appealed for have been provided. It cautioned that progress made in improving food security since the string of hurricanes in 2008 could be reversed without immediate financial support for the purchase of seeds, tools and other supplies.

The Government has reported that 1.3 million people are still living in spontaneous settlements, while over 600,000 others have fled the hard-hit capital for other regions.

OCHA said that the security situation remains stable in Haiti, and that emergency shelter, sanitation and food continue to be among the top needs.

(C) 2010 United Nations

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CBS/AP) As a group of American Baptist charity workers waits to hear if they will be tried on child trafficking charges for attempting to take 33 children out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti, the Associated Press has learned that not all of the children they were transporting were orphans.

“One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, ‘I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.’ And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that,” George Willeit, a spokesman for SOS Children’s Villages, said. SOS, an Austrian-based charity working in Haiti, now has custody of the children.

Willeit said the children arrived “very hungry, very thirsty.” A 2- to 3-month-old baby was dehydrated and had to be hospitalized, he said. Workers were searching for their families or close relatives.

Child welfare groups expressed outrage over Friday’s attempt to move the kids to a hotel in the Dominic Republic, saying some of the children had parents who survived the Jan. 12 earthquake. Prime Minister Max Bellerive denounced the group’s “illegal trafficking of children” in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling.

But while the church workers may be viewed as “traffickers” in Haiti, they say they came armed only with good intentions. They were “just trying to do the right thing,” said Laura Silsby, a spokeswoman for the Idaho church group. She conceded that amidst the chaos, she had not obtained the proper Haitian documents for the children.

The Baptists’ “Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission” was described as an effort to save abandoned, traumatized children. Their plan was to scoop up 100 kids and take them by bus to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic. The 33 kids ranged in age from 2 months to 12 years.

They were stopped at the border for not having proper paperwork and taken back to Port-au-Prince, where the children were taken to a temporary children’s home.

The group’s actions are further complicated by a view amongst some Haitian parents that giving a child up for adoption to foreigners may be their best chance for a future.

“My parents died in the earthquake. My husband has gone. Giving up one of my kids would at least give them a chance,” Saintanne Petit-Frere, 40, a mother of six living outside in a tent camp near the airport said Sunday. “My only fear is that they would forget me, but that wouldn’t affect my decision.”

“Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners,” said Adonis Helman, 44. “I’ve been thinking how I will choose which one I may give.”

For now, the Haitian government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the earthquake. Prime Minister Bellerive’s personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.

Haiti has long been a hub for sex trafficking as well as the trafficking of children for domestic slavery within the country.

A commission will meet Monday to decide if the church members would go before a judge. They remain in custody, but not in jail.

The arrested Americans include members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, and the East Side Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. They are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is America’s largest Protestant denomination and has extensive humanitarian programs worldwide.

The Idaho churches had elaborate plans before the earthquake to shelter up to 200 Haitian and Dominican boys and girls in the Magante beach resort, complete with a school and chapel as well as villas and a seaside cafe catering to adoptive U.S. parents.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Should the Baptist group be viewed as saviors or kidnappers?

Katz, N. (2010, February 01). Baptist “human trafficking” update: some haitian children weren’t orphans. Retrieved          from http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/01/crimesider/entry6162491.shtml