The earthquake in Haiti last year caused massive destruction, but even more chaos looms in the aftermath. Traffickers are taking advantage of the situation by kidnapping, buying or stealing children. Some are being auctioned off to well-meaning yet ignorant western families while others are being  forced into prostitution.

Some of the relief camps contain more than 80 000 families, making it hard to monitor the situation. The children are being targeted by people posing as NGO officials and relatives, or unscrupulous Haitians from abroad, while desperate parents are fooled into believing that their children will live better lives elsewhere.

One specific case of a mother  who sold her children for R8,80 each is particularly heart-breaking. That’s about the price of a loaf of bread, depending on where you shop.

Melissa Nau, a 38-year-old mother of five who suffers from learning and physical disabilities, sold four of her children for 50 Haitian gourdes each.

Unable to work, she was living in the Tabarissa camp in Port au Prince when a man she knew only as Jacques offered to buy the children, aged between four and eight. The money she received lasted just a matter of months and she is now no better off.

[Source: Telegraph]