Mitchialine’s is a success story. From an impoverished family, she was abandoned by her father and left at a residential care center by her mother – but ultimately reunited with relatives with the help of Institut de Bien Être et de la Recherche Sociale (IBESR), Haiti’s child protection agency.

PROTECTING SEPARATED CHILDREN

Mitchialine is one of thousands of children in Haiti who have been separated from their families. Even before the devastating earthquake of 2010, it was estimated that some 1.2 million Haitian children were extremely vulnerable to multiple forms of violence and abuse, including physical and emotional abuse, domestic violence, armed and sexual violence.

To help protect children from exploitation and abuse, UNICEF provides financial and technical support to strengthen IBESR, which is tasked with the protection of all children. “The protection agency documents children who have been placed in institutions and finds alternatives to institutional placement for children,” explains Christina Torsein, child protection chief at UNICEF Haiti.

From 2010 to 2011, about 9,000 separated children were registered; 3,000 have been reunited with their families.

UNICEF has also supported IBESR to create a directory listing all residential care centers in the country, as well as their condition.

In January, IBESR, together with the child protection police Brigade de Protection des Mineurs, closed three centers in which children had been abused and neglected and placed the children in temporary care facilities, where they received medical and psychosocial care.

Mitchialine spent three years at a center that was closed last year because of reports of abuse and neglect.

NO EASY TASK

Reuniting separated children with their families is no easy task in a country with few resources for social services. According to Ms. Torsein, “Access to services in Haiti is highly unequal, and, the poorer a child is, the less likely he or she is to have access to basic rights.”

Mitchialine was identified by a relative visiting the center. Social workers at IBESR then worked to locate her closest living relative –her aunt Vanille Onezaire. After a process of family verification facilitated by IBESR, Mitchialine was reunited with Ms. Onezaire. Ms. Onezaire had thought the little girl had been lost.

“She may seem shy now, but when she first came, she didn’t say a word! Not a word!” recalls Ms. Onezaire, touching Mitchialine’s cheek tenderly. She gestures towards Mitchialine’s arms, which are covered with dark scars. “She got those at the orphanage,” she says. “Scars everywhere.”

She describes Mitchialine’s appearance when she first left the residential care center. “She was so thin, you can’t imagine…She had a swollen stomach from being malnourished. And her hair was falling out.”

“When she first arrived, Mitchialine didn’t play at all,” continues Ms. Onezaire. Mitchialine’s face lights up as she introduces her favorite toy, a green stuffed bear she calls Nounou.

Mitchialine puts Nounou away to help with the housework. Her favorite chore is helping with cooking. She smiles shyly when complimented, then quickly ducks her head and immerses herself in the simple, domestic task in front of her, content with her place in the family.

THE CHALLENGE OF REUNIFICATION

Carine Phadael is the IBESR social worker who helped reunite Mitchialine with her aunt. Ms. Phadael has been paying regular visits to Ms. Onezaire’s home since the girl’s placement to make sure that Mitchialine is doing well.

The first step – finding a home for Mitchialine – has been taken. But the next step is harder – how does Ms. Onezaire, who is already struggling to feed her own family, feed an extra mouth?

Ms. Phadael explains that IBESR provides a one-time stipend to families who have been reunited with their children. But the stipend is not enough to cover basic needs over time in a country in which 55 per cent of the population live below the international poverty line of US$1.25 per day.

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The Salesian school began the first formal training program in the prosthetics and orthotics fields in Latin America in 1996 and since then, about 230 students from 20 countries have graduated with skills that are in demand in their home countries.

“The training program shows how education and training not only benefit the individual student, but also entire communities, as the students return to work in local hospitals and clinics, and even train others in some cases,” says Father Mark Hyde, executive director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. fundraising arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco.

Fr. Mark adds that most recently the University Don Bosco was able to provide assistance in Haiti, helping children and adults who have had amputations following the 2010 earthquake. Immediately following the earthquake, seven professional technicians aided, providing nearly 200 artificial limbs and more than 100 sessions of orthopedic assistance in Port-au-Prince.

“The aim is to help the people. We know what state the country is in after the earthquake. We know this will also help us in our lives and in our profession,” says Alexis Mendoza, one of the volunteers. Volunteers will be involved in assessing the condition of the patients, planning and fitting the artificial limbs and providing orthopedic help.

During a trip in 2010, Prof. Rolando Martinez Panameño, dean of the School of Re-habilitation Science, estimated that out of approximately 10,000 people in need of help, 4,000 have had an amputation.

In addition to volunteer trips, the University partners with the Ministry of Health, Physicians for Peace and other nongovernmental organizations in Haiti to establish a national training and certification program for the Haitian prosthetic and orthotic community. Students take part in a distance learning course in their native language of Creole, while also training with US professionals.

“We are constantly working to expand our services in Haiti to ensure that people with disabilities are able to contribute to the rebuilding of their country. We know that even before the earthquake, children and adults with disabilities faced enormous challenges as resources in Haiti were stretched far beyond capacity,” says Fr. Mark, citing the World Report on Disabilities statistics that show children with disabilities are less likely to start school than non-disabled children and have lower rates of staying in school. In addition, in OECD countries (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), the employment rate of people with disabilities (44 percent) is slightly over half that for people without disabilities (75 percent).

With additional support from the World Health Organization, distance learning programs available in Spanish, Portuguese, English, and French are now also offered in Angola and Bosnia and Herzegovina, says Fr. Mark.

Almost one-fifth of the estimated global total of one billion persons living with disabilities — or between 110-190 million — encounter significant difficulties including discrimination and lack of adequate health care and rehabilitation services, according to the World Report on Disabilities which was developed with contributions from more than 380 experts and is expected to be a key resource for countries implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The report also cites difficulties associated with a lack of access to transportation and information and communication technologies.

People with disabilities have generally poorer health, lower education achievements, fewer economic opportunities and higher rates of poverty than people without disabilities. Children surrounded by poverty, especially those with disabilities, face uncertain futures and overwhelming obstacles.

“Children with disabilities have the same rights as all children, and they deserve the same chance to make the most of their lives and to make their voices heard,” says Anthony Lake, UNICEF executive director. “We need to break down the barriers that prevent full participation of children with disabilities — from programs that ignore their needs, to prejudice that discounts their ability to contribute.”

The remarks were part of Lake’s recent call on Dec. 3, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, for a greater investment in helping children and young people with disabilities to realize their rights. Lake also renewed the call for universal ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

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PHOTO: UN Photo/Sophia Paris

Related MissionNewswire article: GLOBAL: UNICEF Calls for Children with Disabilities to be Included in All Development

Sources:

World Report on Disabilities

UNICEF calls for children with disabilities to be included in all development

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: New world report shows more than 1 billion people with disabilities face substantial barriers in their daily lives

International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics

Handicap International

Salesian Lay Missioners

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