AyiboPost collected testimonies from several children recruited by gangs. A parent complains about his daughter and son being members of an armed group
The boy did not have enough to eat in Martissant.
Living with his mother-in-law, the latter could not help him complete his seventh year of basic schooling and “beat him constantly”.
At ten years old, he ran away.
Three years later, the “5 Segonn” gang established in the area enlisted the man with the shifty gaze.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take you under my wing,” the leader of the group specializing in kidnapping, Johnson, allegedly told him.That» André.
In a few months, the boy will reach the age of majority.
AyiboPost meets him at the premises of a public institution in Martissant where an NGO intervenes to support child gang members.
He insists he has a story to tell.
A tale of gunpowder.
Of blood.
And mourning.
***
According to a statement according to a United Nations entity, children represent 30 to 40% of the total number of gangs in the country.
An AyiboPost source invested in supporting child gang members considers these statistics exaggerated, but admits a solid presence of the latter in the armed gangs of Port-au-Prince.
“They commit most of the murders,” Camille Emmanuel, of the “Komite pwoteksyon Timoun Site Letènèl” (KPTSL), tells AyiboPost.
The “komite” provides psychosocial support to around fifty minors enrolled in armed groups in disadvantaged neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince.
Read also: NGOs offer fake weapons as gifts in Haiti. These toys are no longer fashionable.
Recruitment of children by gangs accelerates with the approach of the armed force led by Kenya, AyiboPost learns from the Minor Protection Brigade (BPM), an entity of the Haitian National Police (PNH) .
Painting created by a child with the help of the KPTSL organization for a competition on “Child Protection” (Thursday June 6, 2024). The scene shows a police officer helping a child cross a street, with a helicopter symbolizing fear of the arrival of the Multinational Security Support Mission (MMAS).
For remuneration, these children serve as informants, spies, security guards, smugglers of firearms and ammunition, fighters or hostage takers, BPM reveals to AyiboPost.
Some also run errands, buy drugs and participate in looting, road tolls and crimes in order to gain promotion in the gang.
According to the head of the BPM, Harold Barreau, gang members sexually abuse young women within them.
***
On this Thursday morning, the crackling of machine guns rang out near the building of the local organization in Martissant when a slender sixteen-year-old young man, reprimanded by the group leader who was assisting him, dryly retorted: “I am a chimera - bandit ! »
Since he got closer to the Martissant gangs, the young man’s speech has become more virulent and his threats have taken an upward curve, notes those around him.
In the distance, dozens of excited children are having fun within the confines of this public building with its decrepit walls, once white.
Psychosocially assisted by the local organization that has been working in the neighborhood for around ten years, the children go back and forth incessantly under the rays of a blazing sun, filtered by the dense foliage of the trees in the area.
For remuneration, these children serve as informants, spies, security guards, smugglers of firearms and ammunition, fighters, and hostage takers.
With his head down, another fourteen-year-old teenager with a dark, slender complexion, peacefully recounts how he runs errands for the Gran-Ravin gang.
He says he wants to become an aviator, but the explosions of violence that punctuate his daily life have nothing to do with aeronautics.
“Friends constantly ask me to join the gang and carry a weapon,” the native of the Bolosse neighborhood, 5th Avenue, confides to AyiboPost.
For this boy, death represents a constant possibility.
A few months ago, he says he lost one of his comrades recruited by gangs during a violent altercation with a third friend, also recruited by criminal groups.
“It hurts me to see him die like this,” breathes the young man, his shoulders sagging.
***
The slide of children into destructive gang violence also affects their parents.
Like this father of four whose daughter and son, aged seventeen, were recruited last year by “5 Segonn”, led by the drug trafficker That.
According to this man who has lived for eight years in Fort Sainte-Clair, in the heart of Port-au-Prince, the children were looking for means of subsistence that he “could not provide for them.”
In March 2024, the “Viv ansanm” gang coalition destroyed his small informal car washing business at the bottom of town, plunging him further into precariousness.
Read also: Construction underway at Village de Dieu. Viv Ansanm destroys the lower part of the city.
“It hurts me, because I have no economic means to take my children back,” said the man, speaking of his two motherless children, from a displaced persons camp in Port-au-Prince.
***
Several factors push young people into the violent spiral of armed groups.
But the explosion of the family cocoon, “socio-economic vulnerability makes them easy to exploit,” analyzes the police commissioner and head of the BPM, Harold Barreau.
Public and private initiatives to stem the phenomenon of child recruitment “remain insignificant,” according to Barreau.
Today, the BPM does not know how many children are part of gangs.
Sometimes the police apprehend adolescent members of criminal groups.
However, “there is no [pratiquement] no post-prison support intended for the latter, notes Jude Chery, president of the Association of Volunteers for the Reintegration of Prisoners in Haiti (Avred-Haïti).
Also, the risk of recurrence remains high, according to Chery.
Read also: Children, young girls and criminals from the National Penitentiary in the same center
The Institute of Social Welfare and Research (IBESR) receives enlisted children brought by the BPM to try to reunite them with their biological family, declares Arielle Jeanty Villedrouin, director of the institution.
An interinstitutional initiative in the field led by IBESR a year ago is slow to bear fruit.
***
The boy from Martissant, now a member of “5 Segonn” insists on telling his story.
A friend shot his younger brother in the head because he accused him of going out with his girlfriend, he says.
He and his brother are the sons of a mechanic from Grand-Rue in Port-au-Prince and a former shopkeeper.
“It breaks my heart,” he said in a hushed voice, avoiding gazes.
But “the turn of the one who killed my brother will come, because I will take revenge,” said the teenager with frowning eyebrows. “And the one who made me cry must cry too,” he continues.
The child admits to having participated in several attacks.
For example, he took part in the destruction at the bottom of the city alongside Izo’s soldiers after having contributed to the invasion of Carrefour-Feuille in 2023 with the Grand-Ravin gang.
Read also: Pictures | Gangs have disfigured the lower part of the city of Port-au-Prince
Within the walls of this local organization in Martissant, child gang members often blame the State for their tragic destiny. “My dream was to become a doctor, and I always told my mother,” the boy from Martissant told AyiboPost.
Cover image published by AyiboPost illustrating the presence of minors in a demonstration led by powerful gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier.
Watch our report on the tactics used by gangs to prepare against the multinational force.
Keep in touch with AyiboPost via:
► Our channel Telegram : Click here
► Our Channel WhatsApp : Click here
► Our Community WhatsApp : Click here
