Where's Home for Children Who've lost Their Parents?

by David Diggs

On the afternoon of January 12, twelve-year-old Marie Ange Joseph was fetching water for the family she’d been working for as an unpaid domestic servant. Although she was uninjured by the earthquake, the family she’d been serving was left homeless and abandoned her. Marie Ange didn’t know what to do. Like thousands of other children separated from their families after the quake, she wandered the streets and spontaneous settlements of the city. Marie Ange knew she had come from the rural community of Kazal, north of Port-au-Prince, but she had no way of contacting or reaching her family there.  Like so many other poor rural families, Clotide and Noula Joseph had sent their child to the city hoping she would be cared for, sent to school, and given a better life than they could provide. They loved Marie Ange deeply, but they were too poor to afford the cost of travel to visit her, and never came to understand that she had become trapped in domestic servitude.  But there was no misunderstanding the news of destruction and death pouring out of Port-au-Prince after the quake.  Clotide and Noula feared the worst for their little girl, but had no way of finding her. After a local clairvoyant told them their daughter had died, they lost all hope of being reunited with Marie Ange and began grieving her death.

Children made homeless by the quake move salvaged belongings to a camp in Port-au-Prince. Photo Joseph Molieri

Shortly after the quake, Beyond Borders staff in Port-au-Prince were invited to help guide the international effort to aid children separated from their parents or orphaned by the quake.  The United Nations and many other large internationalorganizations had sent teams of disaster relief experts to Haiti to respond to the crisis. Although few of those arriving had experience in Haiti, they brought with them an understanding of the international system for doing Post-disaster Family Tracing and Reunification (FTR).

Beyond Borders convinced the international inter-agency child protection group that the international system should be adapted to Haiti, since tens of thousands of children were already separated from their parents and living in Port-au-Prince prior to the quake. We knew these children were especially vulnerable and that many would either be abandoned or would continue to endure exploitation and abuse at the hands of those they served.

Small group session in a training program for Family Tracing and Reunification (FTR), led by Jean Prosper (Pépé) Elie. Photo: Beyond Borders

Two of our staff members, Jean Prosper (Pèpè) Elie and Cara Kennedy, were charged with developing materials and a training program for caseworkers who would be employed by the Haitian government and numerous international agencies—including the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Save the Children, World Vision, and UNICEF—to go through the camps, streets, orphanages, and hospitals to register children separated from their families. 

With funding from Beyond Borders and additional support from Free the Slaves and the IRC, Mr. Elie and Dr. Kennedy trained more than one hundred caseworkers, case coordinators, and master trainers who are now working to expand the scale of registration, family tracing, and reunification efforts beyond Port-au-Prince so it reaches more children. Over a thousand children have already been reached through these caseworkers, and more caseworkers are being trained and deployed. 

Coleen Hedglin is coordinating Beyond Borders’ participation in this interagency FTR effort. She is also heading the development of a new initiative to train communities and families to receive and care for children who cannot be reunited with their families. We will continue to encourage sensitivity to children like Marie Ange who were, or still are, living in domestic servitude.

Our efforts are showing signs of success. In early June, caseworkers whom we’d trained were finally able to locate Marie Ange’s parents near the town of Kazal. Those parents, and the whole community, were waiting for Marie Ange the day she returned, and they gave her a jubilant and deeply moving welcome. 

This is just one example of the many family reunifications now taking place. The bigger challenge now is to help develop systems that provide new loving Haitian homes for the multitude of children who cannot be reunited with their parents. Please pray for all who are working to care for these most vulnerable children. The earthquake has created new needs, but also a unique opportunity to help Haiti create a viable internal foster-care and adoption system that can serve as an alternative to the restavèk child servitude system.