New funds for IOM's counter-trafficking work in Haiti will allow
the organization to not only continue providing direct assistance
to victims of the crime but also to carry out new research into the
trafficking of minors in the sex industry in Haiti and the
Dominican Republic.

The USD 1.6 million from the US Department of State, Office to
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (GTIP) and by the United
Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, will support a programme focusing
on children drawn into the restavèk system of domestic
slavery in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

This includes IOM and partners working to raise awareness of the
problem in the heartland where trafficking originates, partly
through a mass communications programme involving radio
messages.

Women and girls abused and exploited in the sex industry in
Haiti will also be assisted. A research element focusing on
identifying the main drivers of the sex trade involving Haitian and
Dominican minors will provide urgently needed insight into the
issue which has been largely unexplored.

About 500 victims of trafficking across Hispaniola will be given
direct assistance through this new funding including medical care,
as well as psychosocial, nutritional, and educational support. IOM
helps reintegrate victims into society with micro grants to the
parents of trafficked children and adult victims to provide
livelihood options that will help lessen the risks of
re-trafficking due to poverty.

More than 650 victims of trafficking have been directly assisted
by IOM in Haiti since 2004 to regain some sort of normalcy in their
lives. The Organization's counter-trafficking activities in Haiti
also include strengthening the counter-trafficking legal framework.
The Haitian government has been supported in drafting a
counter-trafficking bill currently before the Haitian Senate. 
IOM also strengthens the institutional capacity of immigration,
police, judiciary and social workers through counter-trafficking
and counter-smuggling training sessions.

Since the earthquake last year, IOM's counter-trafficking
efforts in Haiti have focused primarily on providing support to
internally displaced people in camps to lessen vulnerabilities to
trafficking, on orphaned children in the post-earthquake phase and
on restavek children who no longer have a hosting family.

All IOM counter-trafficking activities involve close
collaboration with Haitian governmental institutions such as the
Institute of Social Well Being and Research, IBESR, and the Brigade
for the Protection of Minors – a branch of the National
Haitian Police responsible for minors – as well as with the
Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Women Affairs and
Rights.

For more information, please contact:

Michela Macchiavello

IOM Haiti

Tel: + 509 3245 5153

E-mail: "mailto:mmacchiavello@iom.int">mmacchiavello@iom.int 

or

Leonard Doyle

Email: "mailto:ldoyle@iom.int">ldoyle@iom.int 

Tel: + 509 3702 5066