Adviser of childhood protection of the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef), Jean Claude Legrand, said on Friday that since Jan. 12, 15 children have disappeared from the hospitals of Port au Prince, Haiti's capital, Xinhua reported.
"Unfortunately we have registered the disappearance of 15 children from different hospitals in Haiti and we suspect that they have been kidnapped by networks related to the international adoption market," Legrand said in a press conference.
According to Legrand, the Unicef is worried now for this disappearance to continue during the coming days, because some of these children were injured or were accompanying their injured parents.
"These networks existed in Haiti before and they were very active, kidnapping children and giving them in adoption. Whenever there is a catastrophe, the networks try to take advantage of the weakness of the State and of the control systems," Legrand said.
The Unicef has established different security systems to impede the kidnappings to happen and it is organizing to establish shelters to receive all the children who do not have relatives, Legrand said.
Legrand added that many of those children cannot be considered orphan because it is necessary to prove that they lost their both parents and that any relative appears, so he suggested no to start adoption procedures of Haitian children.
Unicef currently has 20 shelters for children without companions, and it assists some 2,000 children per day.
Till 2009, there were some 380,000 orphans in Haiti and it is estimated that 63,000 pregnant women will give birth in the coming weeks.
Unicef denounces disappearance of 15 children from hospitals in Haiti
