As a new multinational force musters in Haiti, its foreign police and soldiers could soon find themselves face-to-face with hundreds of children.
Children make up about 50% of armed groups in the country, experts estimate. In 2024 alone, at least 302 children were “recruited and used” by gangs across the capital, Port-au-Prince, according to the latest UN secretary general’s report on children and armed conflict. Most were used in combat roles, it said.
Traces of this phenomenon can be spotted on gangs’ social media. Last week, during a gang attack that left dozens dead in Artibonite, Haiti’s agricultural heartland, one video appeared to show a round-cheeked young boy waving a rifle and…