Haiti - FLASH Artibonite : Young girls sold as concubine or wife as part of a custom
In Haiti, under the eyes of a passive justice, in the twenty-first century, human trafficking still takes place in the country, so proud of having broken through slavery... For example, in the locality of "Démarré" (6th section of Verrettes, Artibonite), as part of an old custom, a man can buy a concubine or a teenage wife or a young girl against a sums paid to parents up to 20,000 gourdes according to the negotiations and economic needs of the family...
According to local testimony it is even possible for the buyer to book a girl of 7 or 8 years without any faculty of consent, that he will recover "at maturity" (14 to 16 years)...
Although Haiti has several laws protecting minors and a law against human trafficking (law of 2 June 2004), the latter is still too little known and even less applie ... This law in its article 1.1.1 describes "Human Trafficking" as "the recruitment, transportation, accommodation or reception of persons by the threat of recourse or the use of force or other forms of coercion, by abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of authority or a situation of vulnerability, or by offering or accepting payments or benefits to obtain the consent of a person having authority over a other for the purpose of exploitation."
Haiti has legal tools to protect minors and combat human trafficking, recalls Senator Jean Renel Sénatus who says that in the new Penal Code, there will be many more measures that will rigorously punish anyone involved in cases of people's bills.
Reacting to several testimonies from underage girls, sold to older men, UNICEF strongly condemns these cases of sexual exploitation of minors. Recalling that abuses and violence of all kinds against children, as well as their exploitation are punishable by Haitian law. UNICEF informs that child protection actors will investigate these cases in order to give legal follow-up if they are proven.
