Haitian adoption alarm

For as little as 150 dollars it's become possible to obtain a child illicitly in Haiti's quake zone, according to Sascha Decker of the German-based children's aid association Kindernothilfe. He told German ARD public television, Haiti's orphaned children urgently “need identification and documents. They must be registered by name. Otherwise they become easy prey for child traffickers.”

The German branch of Save the Children says the hundreds of thousands of children left destitute and separated from surviving family members in Haiti's post-quake chaos should not be automatically declared as orphans awaiting adoption. Another organization, World Vision, has urged Haiti's government to block new adoptions, initially at least.

“Naturally, lots of people want spontaneously to rescue children," Marwin Meier, a World Vision spokesman in Port-au-Prince told news agency epd. “But, overhasty adoptions pose the danger that children will be ripped out of their cultural circles and separated from their families,”he added.

Another German association, Haiti-Kinderhilfe, says, before the earthquake, Haitian parents already struggling amid the Caribbean nation's widespread poverty had typically sent their children to stay with other families, some to work. The quake had left these children isolated and unaccounted for.

The organizations point jointly to the Hague Convention of 1993 which endorses the rights of biological parents and says adoptions should only be arranged through recognized agencies.

The German branch of UNICEF says the UN agency is setting up protective centers for children in Haiti, where the search can begin for their surviving relatives. A telephone hotline to bring together missing children and parents had been set up.

Prior to the quake, at least 50,000 children had already been housed in kindergartens and other centers, often privately run, UNICEF says. Many had been sent there to ensure that they were at least fed and had a roof over their heads. Some 40 percent of Haiti's population are younger than 15.

Haitian children flown to the Netherlands

A plane carrying 106 Haitian children due for adoption arrived at Eindhoven in the Netherlands on Thursday. A Dutch agency, the Netherlands Adoption Foundation, said the children were among a larger group approved by Haitian authorities for adoption before last week's disaster. Their transfer had been accelerated. Dutch parents would adopt 92 children. The remaining 14 were awaited by adoptive parents in Luxembourg.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said 904 French families were waiting, with 276 adoptive children in the final stages of being processed. “We will repatriate them to France as quickly as possible, “ Kouchner told parliament in Paris.

Children also need psychological help

A German newspaper, the Saarbrücker Zeitung, quoted a German foreign ministry spokesman as saying a first group of Haitian youngsters could arrive within days under a new “fast, unbureaucratic and humane” policy, agreed with the Haitian government.

The Federal Office for Foreign Adoption in Bonn said it had been flooded with inquiries, but said careful checks must be made of every child and potential adoptive parents. Spokesman Thomas Ottersbach said “We're greatly concerned that in such disasters trafficking with children will be made.”

A trauma expert with Plan International Germany, Dr. Unni Krishnan, said Haiti's young earthquake victims urgently need psychological help. “After what has happened, the girls and boys don't know where to direct their uncertainty and sadness. They are searching for their parents and siblings. Their distress is barely imaginable.”

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Editor: Susan Houlton