Saving Haiti’s Children from Hell

Abstract

Haiti’s devastating earthquake in January 2010 left thousands of children orphaned and tens of thousands separated from their family. Following the earthquake, foreign militaries, non-governmental agencies, humanitarian aid workers, missionaries, and volunteers descended en masse on the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere to help the victims, especially children, in the midst of the disaster. Unfortunately, some of those who came to help Haiti’s children showed little regard for the domestic and international legal protections in place to protect child victims of disaster. As a result, these individuals, organizations and governments added additional layers of chaos and alienation to these children’s lives. This article explores the international legal protections in place at the time of the earthquake and the ways in which they were violated in order to “save” Haiti’s children from their families, their religion, their culture and their poverty as much as, if not more than, the earthquake itself.