B Explanatory
memorandum by Ms Hostalier, rapporteur
1 Introduction
1. This report deals principally with the situation
in Haiti one year after the terrible earthquake of 12 January 2010.
The people of Haiti, and the children in particular, need Europe’s
support more than ever before as they are still suffering the lasting
consequences of the greatest disaster the country has known for
centuries. A few days after the Haiti earthquake, I suggested that
the Parliamentary Assembly should turn its attention to the subject
of this report, considering that the evaluation of the way in which
Europe, as well as member states and European non-governmental organisations
(NGOs), intervened to assist the people of Haiti could serve as
an example to follow or to improve upon in case of a future comparable
situation. The example of Afghanistan was added at a later stage
in the report in order to address the situation of a country which
has been in crisis for decades. Even if the context of conflict,
or indeed war, means that the situation is different, the fate of
the children is just as tragic, and the recommendations on intervention
have many similarities. Therefore, the specific situation of children
there will only be illustrated by some selected items of information
(see paragraphs 21 and 22).
2. According to a report presented by UNICEF in January 2011,
Note 220 000
people lost their lives in the earthquake in Haiti and countless
families were devastated, 750 000 children being directly affected.
In January 2011, more than 600 000 persons, including 230 000 children,
were still homeless and living in camps, where it was impossible
to give them proper health care, education and protection and where
many people had no access to drinking water or the most basic sanitation
and hygiene. Moreover, towards the end of 2010 and until 2011, their
situation was further worsened by the outbreak of cholera in October
2010, Hurricane Thomas in November 2010 and the political upheaval
surrounding the presidential election in March 2011.
3. The earthquake in Haiti brought about a highly complex situation
– a natural disaster struck and weakened a country which was already
in a state of extreme poverty and had to face other crises immediately afterwards.
Helping such a country represents a special challenge to the international
community, not only as regards emergency action but also in helping
the country get back on its feet and develop new infrastructures, economic
activities and plans for the future. Therefore, one year after the
natural disaster in Haiti, it was important to take stock of the
successes and failures of international action to assist the Haitian
people, and especially children.
4. Natural disasters and political crises are events that pose
a threat to the lives and the very basis of existence of the population
in the country concerned. Both occur quite regularly, as we have
had occasion to see not just in Haiti but also in East Africa, the
Arab world, Japan, and for much longer now in Afghanistan, to mention
only a few examples. Even if some of these countries are very distant
from us, the member states of the Council of Europe are called upon
to assist them. They must share their know-how in crisis situations, provide
material support and shoulder the responsibility which derives from
the many forms of economic and social interdependence with the countries
concerned.
5. Through this report, some lines of action to be followed by
the member states of the Council of Europe shall be suggested in
order to give the best possible help to the children of Haiti and
of Afghanistan, as well as to the children of countries that may
be hit by natural disasters or crisis situations in the future.
The suggestions put forward are based on expert opinions given at
a hearing organised by the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee
in Paris on 23 March 2011, which was attended by representatives
of the United Nations, UNICEF and the humanitarian associations
Médecins du Monde and Action Against Hunger.
Note Their oral
contributions have been drawn upon for the purposes of this report,
and I thank them warmly for having shared their great expertise
with our committee. The various written materials they have also
provided, such as the report on the human rights situation in Haiti
submitted to the United Nations General Assembly in June 2011, have
made it possible to enrich the analysis. Lastly, this report includes
information which I personally gleaned during my two visits to Haiti
and Afghanistan, which I conducted at my own expense in April and
July 2011 respectively and during which I met many experts and affected
families. All the recommendations set out in this report are therefore
based on information collected
in situ.
2 The situation
of children in Haiti and in Afghanistan and action needed
2.1 Dangers posing
a threat to children in Haiti
6. Even before the earthquake, there were special problems
in Haiti affecting the rights and protection of children: a high
rate of mother-and-infant mortality; unequal access to health care;
vulnerability of children to chronic malnutrition, sexual assault
and violence; the existence of organised networks of human trafficking
and domestic exploitation; and 50 000 children placed in institutions.
The earthquake exacerbated that situation and revealed the “silent
crisis” of this country which is amongst the poorest in the world,
which was less prepared than others for such a disaster, and which
had always had particularly weak child protection mechanisms.
7. In situations of crisis, whatever their cause, children are
invariably the most vulnerable members of society, in particular
when they are separated from their family and their usual surroundings.
In Haiti, for this reason, children were greatly exposed to the
violence present on the streets and in temporary camps, and to criminal
activities which already existed before but grew more serious with
the public disorder caused by the earthquake. Because of the large
number of isolated and even orphaned children, and of mass movements
of population inside the country, the risks of children being abducted
for trafficking and exploitation, illegal adoption or violent treatment
have persisted for a long period after the catastrophe and still
seem to exist. In this connection, the United Nations teams are
still worried by allegations of child trafficking on the frontier
with the Dominican Republic.
8. One of the biggest childcare problems in Haiti remains the
large number of illegal or undeclared childcare institutions. Often
children are placed in them by their families with the laudable
intention of ensuring better care for them, but are then at risk
of being exploited for commercial or trafficking purposes. Another
specific issue severely affecting children’s rights is that of restaveks (meaning “stay with” in
Creole). As a rule, it means placing the children of poor families
from rural areas with better-off urban families in the hope that
they will enjoy a better life. What often happens in practice, however,
is that the children are exploited by being forced to perform arduous
domestic tasks, they do not attend school and are subjected to physical
or sexual violence, isolation and under-nourishment. According to
UNICEF estimates, this was the fate of 173 000 Haitian children in
2007, which represents over 8% of the country’s 5 to 17 year olds.
If children are to be spared this fate, it is indispensable to help
the state of Haiti establish a veritable population census, the
principle of compulsory school attendance and a more effective control
of placement facilities with strict rules that leave no margin whatsoever
for corruption.
9. As regards international adoption, steps must be taken to
ensure that Haitian children are not removed from their country
without the foreign host families fulfilling comprehensive and transparent
legal formalities. International adoption is not a humanitarian
gesture and, as stipulated in the Hague Convention, must be seen only
as a last resort when all alternatives inside the country have been
explored and where the competent authorities have established that
the child has no parents or guardian. In the case of Haiti, it is
for the Haitian authorities in particular, with support from the
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to put strong
machinery in place for this purpose.
10. According to the association Médecins du Monde, which is an
approved adoption agency, international adoption in relation to
Haiti had already encountered “predatory” mechanisms prior to the
crisis, since the “demand” for children to adopt has always far
exceeded the “supply”. The search for young children has always fuelled
the circuits of corruption, and this has been even more the case
since the earthquake. Thus more than 2 000 fast-tracked cases of
adoption had been recorded by 31 May 2010, and thousands of attempted
exits via the Dominican Republic have been foiled. Some European
countries, like France, have decided to halt incoming adoptions
(except for cases legally processed before the earthquake), despite
strong pressure from the adopting families. Legislative developments
in the matter, aimed at better protection for children, are awaited
in Haiti, but no progress will be possible until such time as the
state reverts to normal functioning.
11. One of the main problems also facing children in Haiti is
that of access to education. According to UNESCO, only one child
in five had access to public schooling before the earthquake of
12 January 2010. Thus a large section of the population was denied
education because parents could not afford to pay the enrolment fees.
In the meantime, UNESCO has undertaken to support the Haitian minister
of national education and vocational training in implementing the
plan recommended by the national education covenant. Among other things,
Haiti would like to provide free quality education, from 2015 onwards,
for all children aged between 6 and 12.
Note Similar
efforts are being made by UNICEF, which hoped to rebuild 200 semi-permanent
schools across the country by the end of June 2011.
Note According
to UNICEF, the role of education must moreover not be underestimated:
after a crisis, access to schooling should be restored as rapidly
as possible for as many children as possible, so as to give them
a sense of normality and of belonging to a community that provides reassurance.
12. In crisis situations such as the one in Haiti, children are
often exposed to a chain of hazards that begins with the loss of
or protracted separation from the reference adult and continues
with physical and psychological threats such as malnutrition, limited
access to health care or education, as well as exposure to various
forms of violence. Obviously, the younger the child is when submitted
to such conditions, the more dramatic are the consequences. Furthermore,
a “paradox” can be observed in Haiti: whereas the child is often
considered “king” in official parlance, the reality is otherwise
and one must note that children are not only poorly protected but are
sometimes used as a resource for trafficking of various types. Many
children were already victims of exploitation before the January
2010 earthquake. The complexity of a crisis situation, such as the
one in Haiti, makes children even more vulnerable than in “normal”
times.
2.2 Factors which exacerbate
the situation or increase its complexity
13. First of all, the relative inability of the Haitian
Government and the local authorities to respond to the consequences
of the earthquake made the situation worse. Most of the ministries
had been destroyed, many civil servants were dead or incapable of
working, and in the general “chaos”, the basic social services could
no longer reach rural populations. This made the widespread chronic
poverty amongst them much worse and reduced the vital economic base
(then confined to the capital). Moreover, emergency situations must
be co-ordinated against a background of the utmost neutrality and
impartiality and try to reach out to the entire population that
needs help, which is sometimes rendered difficult by an excessively
rapid turnover of humanitarian personnel on the ground who make
do with what others have left behind.
14. The “thematic cluster” approach to crisis management under
the aegis of the United Nations (examples: nutrition, health, water,
sanitation and hygiene, education, etc.) has proved generally effective.
However, it has been difficult to clearly reach the objectives foreseen
for these “clusters”, due to the multitude of challenges and their
interaction – humanitarian, but also economic and geopolitical challenges
– as well as due to the inter-agency competition, the number of
humanitarian players involved and their diversity (public, private,
military, NGOs, etc.). Moreover, the complexity of the situation
has been further compounded by the fact that multinational relief
has been completed by bilateral co-operation. Lastly, due to the
lack of a reliable institutional framework, the efficacy of humanitarian
action has been affected by corruption and other criminal activities.
15. The outbreak of cholera in the second half of 2010 also contributed
to exacerbating the humanitarian situation. However, thanks to the
rapid intervention of international organisations, it was possible
to control the disease fairly quickly. In early 2011, the cholera
epidemic began to decline, but does not appear to have been entirely
eradicated, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
16. As regards children in particular, a post-disaster “baby boom”
is frequently observed 9 to 10 months after a violent event causing
the deaths of numerous children. According to some humanitarian
associations, this has also been the case in Haiti. Besides the
material situations already described, the psychological state of many
mothers makes it impossible for them to care for their children
properly or take advantage of the consultations and support available
to them, leaving the children in an even more vulnerable situation.
17. One of the major difficulties in crisis situations lies in
organising ongoing humanitarian relief. One year after the earthquake,
a very large number of people were still living in precarious conditions,
under tarpaulins or in tents. After the emergency responses aimed
at meeting the population’s primary needs, the huge challenge of
rebuilding the stricken areas is still there. On the other hand,
as long as field workers do not know where the displaced persons
are to be accommodated in the long run, it will be impossible for
them to deploy actions aimed at revitalising and developing the
country. In February 2010, the number of displaced persons in the
country was estimated at 467 000, most of them in the province of
Artibonite. Faced with this situation, good co-ordination between
international humanitarian agencies and with the national and local
authorities was all the more important. Likewise, the reconstruction
of Port-au-Prince calls for a true urban policy based on reliable
cadastral data.
18. Another difficulty in the case of Haiti is actually releasing
the international funds made available. On 31 March 2010, in New
York, more than 50 countries and multilateral organisations pledged
US$9.8 billion in aid for the reconstruction of Haiti in the medium
and long term. One year after the earthquake, rebuilding projects
representing expenditure of only US$3.1 billion had been decided
on by the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, and only half that
amount had actually been disbursed.
2.3 The lessons to
be learnt
19. In Haiti, UNICEF and other specialised organisations
such as Médecins du Monde and Action Against Hunger, which were
consulted for the purposes of this report, have done excellent work
in the areas of documentation, identification of isolated children,
family reunification, housing, care provision and protection. UNICEF’s
response has taken the form of activities in four areas (“clusters”):
water, hygiene and sanitation; education; protection of children;
and health and nutrition. For example, over 720 000 children have
been supported in this way for re-enrolment in school; out of 5 144
children separated from their families it has been possible to reunite
1 363, while others have been placed in supervised centres, and
1.9 million children have been vaccinated against six diseases.
The monetary value of UNICEF action up to January 2011 alone has been
estimated at US$350 million (though with only 85% of funding being
ensured).
20. In the framework of this mobilisation of the international
community to deal with crisis situations, the reports of experts
are useful in identifying the broad challenges that need to be taken
up:
- mechanisms of governance
able to provide coherent and effective humanitarian responses;
- decentralised actions to reach the poorest and most vulnerable
people (children and mothers) in remote areas;
- greater flexibility of the international organisations
(UNICEF and others) in rapidly adapting operations to new contexts;
- rapid restoration of national managerial capabilities;
- convincing national partners that the idea is not to establish
a “reign” of international NGOs but to provide real support in a
spirit of confidence, and involving the national authorities as
“leader”, or at least participant, in all action undertaken;
- restoration of dialogue and confidence within “communities”,
which constitute huge resources but which, in a case like Haiti,
have first to be re-established after being weakened by thirty years
of dictatorship;
- involvement of the private sector.
2.4 A second example:
Afghanistan
21. The situation of children in Afghanistan is just
as tragic as in Haiti, according to the main indicators: with 45%
of the population below the age of 15, child mortality stands at
over 15% and one in four children dies before the age of 5. While
children’s rights had been disregarded while the Taliban were in
power (up until 2001), the situation of children in 2011 remains
unstable and is deteriorating in line with the pauperisation of society,
even in the major towns and cities. Even though Afghanistan has
ratified the International Convention on the Rights of the Child
(ICRC), most of the rights specific to children are not being respected,
a situation further exacerbated in areas exposed to conflict, where
children are often forcibly conscripted to take part in the fighting.
Indeed, the problems for children persist in the fields of security,
access to education and vocational training, health (including for
their mothers) and poverty and general living conditions. The specific risks
to Afghan children, many of whom have had to fend for themselves
from an early age, include those linked to life on the street, domestic
accidents, but also targeted attacks on their personal integrity
such as sexual abuse of boys and forced marriage, which can often
be considered as domestic rape, for girls. Access to education remains
difficult, particularly for girls, even though enormous efforts
have led to the schooling of some 7 million children in September
2011 (leaving up to 4.5 million still not attending school).
22. The international responses to these problems have come up
against similar difficulties to those in Haiti, but on an even larger
scale. Despite the political goodwill shown by the Afghan Government
as well as all the agencies operating in the country, international
assistance lacks coherency and transparency. The lack of clarity
and co-ordination in any European policy is particularly worrying:
some countries which have had special relations with Afghanistan
for many years (like France, Germany, Turkey and the United Kingdom)
are conducting their own separate actions, while virtually all the
European countries have been involved in the military coalition
and the efforts to rebuild the country. Co-ordination of the different
players involved is also needed: some agencies such as UNICEF have
the requisite expertise but often lack the means of action, while other
state or non-governmental organisations may have the resources but
lack the expertise or fail to co-ordinate their actions, which sometimes
renders them ineffective. Moreover, many NGOs have withdrawn from Afghanistan
since 2006 for security reasons.
3 Action required
of the international community
23. In the light of the situations studied for the present
report, it becomes evident that, in order to protect children effectively
in crisis situations, the following actions are vital:
- recognising childhood as a factor
of particular vulnerability, so as to provide appropriate responses
while differentiating between age brackets (under 5, school age,
(pre‑)adolescence);
- ensuring access to a suitable diet and good quality water,
proper conditions of hygiene and sanitation, physical and mental
health provision, protection against various forms of abuse and
violence, and ongoing schooling;
- setting up special services for women who have just given
birth and are breast-feeding, as proposed by the Action Against
Hunger association (distribution of artificial milk and high-protein
diet supplements, special tents for mothers and babies, etc.).
24. According to the experts consulted in the context of this
report, future international action in Haiti and in other regions
hit by crisis should aim to protect children better by means of
the following measures:
- with
regard to international standards, ratification of the Hague Convention
on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry
Adoption, and strict application of the recommendations made in
the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary
Forms of Slavery;
- support in the framework of legislative and judicial reforms
designed to put in place effective machinery to combat all the risks
to which children are already exposed in “normal” times, but even
more so in crisis situations – abduction, trafficking, violence
and sexual assault, placement in illegal and unsupervised reception
facilities, abusive international adoption and the Haitian practice
of restavek;
- ongoing support for the action of UNICEF and other specialised
organisations, inter alia,
by ensuring that financial pledges are honoured.
25. As a general rule, and regardless of the specific situation
of children, the following principles should be observed in order
to ensure maximum effectiveness of medium-term aid:
- support for national agencies,
not only in the most urgent responses to the crisis but also in
restoring essential basic services and the principal infrastructures
and finding income-producing solutions, as well as reinforcing the
Haitian state and extricating it from chronic political instability;
- a guarantee of high-quality, lasting intervention followed
by gradual disengagement;
- respect for human rights in the context of intervention
by the international organisations themselves in order to safeguard
their long-term credibility.
4 Conclusions
and recommendations
26. The future action required of the member states of
the Council of Europe entails legislative activities to a lesser
extent only. It is mainly of a political nature, aimed at greater
international co-ordination to deal with natural disasters and political
crises. Only through coherent, targeted action on the part of the
international community can effective help be given to children
in crisis situations. The examples of Haiti and Afghanistan, particularly
the information gathered at the hearing of experts and during my
rapporteur missions, back up this argument.
27. Children face a great many dangers in crisis situations. In
countries like Haiti, laws and mechanisms designed to ensure their
full and complete protection are often lacking. In such circumstances,
the member states of the Council of Europe must first take emergency
action while applying their own high standards of democracy and
human rights in the framework of the immediate aid given. This relates,
for example, to the rules governing international adoption, transparent
financial flows and supervision of the actions of humanitarian personnel.
In the medium term, it is also Europe’s responsibility to assist
in strengthening the rule of law and legislation in the countries
concerned.
28. In particular fields, the member states of the Council of
Europe may also be called upon to strengthen their own legislation
or legal machinery, for example in the area of international adoption:
in the absence of secure procedures in
situ, some European countries such as Austria, France
and Germany have, for a certain period of time, suspended adoption
on their territory of children from Haiti by way of international
adoption.
29. The two examples of Haiti and Afghanistan once again show
that the highest standards in matters of child protection are far
from being respected in all countries. It is also incumbent on Council
of Europe member states to promote these standards wherever they
can, while respecting the social and cultural contexts of the individual
countries.
30. Overall, the protection of children against threats to their
integrity (abduction, trafficking, physical and sexual violence,
exploitation for domestic work, etc.) should constitute a priority
of national and international action. The specific needs of children
and their right to particular protection must not be “overlooked”
in the mass of other problems needing to be tackled at the same
time, but on the contrary it should be a permanent “constant” of
any humanitarian action undertaken.
