Job: Short-Term Consulting with USAID (through LTL Strategies)

LTL Strategies is mobilizing urgent on-the-ground assistance for the Haiti reconstruction efforts being coordinated by USAID and the Office of the Response Coordinator (ORC). We are placing expert consultants in short-term assignments where they can have an immediate impact.

Please see below a sampling of our assignments we expect to fill. Most of our assignments will call for 30 to 90 days on the ground. Interested consultants can send their CVs to jobs@ltlstrategies.com.

With more than 600,000 persons displaced since the January 12 earthquake and the hurricane season approaching, time is of the essence. Some of our work on the ground has already begun, and we are moving very quickly.

LTL STTAs in Support of USAID/Haiti -

LTL Strategies is a Washington-based international development consulting firm. We are currently implementing a contract to provide technical support to USAID/Haiti and the Civilian Response Corps, hiring consultants in a variety of sectors.

• Acquisition and Assistant Specialist: The consultant will provide expert services to CRC staff covering all aspects of USAID acquisition and assistance for the CRC’s reconstruction and stabilization instruments, including pre-award, award, and post-ward administration.
• Administrative Assistant: The consultant will successfully liaise with members of the CRC, including the Director of the Office of the Response Coordinator (ORC) or his/her designee on a day-to-day basis. Provide administrative support to the Director and other CRC staff of the ORC. Log, route, and ensure timely response to incoming telephone and email requests for information. Log, route, and ensure timely response to Congressional, external, and internal written correspondence. Arrange meeting space and schedule and manage attendance of CRC members at multiple meetings. Prepare and track travel authorizations and make travel arrangements. Coordinate motorpool, IT support, and cell phone/Blackberry requests. Read directives and instruction materials and ensure conformity to established policies. Coordinate with Information Officer on preparation of speeches and presentations. Perform other duties as directed by the ORC Director or his/her designee.
• Agriculture and Rural Development Specialist: Provides specialized technical advice to CRC staff on agriculture and rural development for the purpose of supporting, planning and the CRC’s mobilizing reconstruction and stabilization activities, particularly in IDP receiving areas.
• Energy Specialist: The consultant will provide support to CRC staff on energy project design, development, and implementation or the purpose of supporting, planning and mobilizing the CRC’s reconstruction and stabilization activities.
• Environment Specialist: Serves as Environment Compliance specialist in support of CRC Environment Officer. Ensures that all the CRC’s reconstruction and stabilization programs are in compliance with all statutory environmental requirements.
• Food Aid Specialist: The consultant will report to CRC staff on all food security issues, to include changes in the food security situation and food aid requirements, government policies and actions affecting food aid programs, government food aid programs, and donor pledges and programs in support of the CRC’s reconstruction and stabilization activities.
• General Development Initiatives Coordinator: The consultant will provide specialized technical advice to CRC staff on a broad area of technical areas such as agriculture, rural development, democracy, and environmental issues for the purpose of supporting, planning, and the CRC’s mobilizing reconstruction and stabilization activities, particularly in IDP receiving areas.
• GIS/ Geo Mapping Specialist: Provides support for mapping/geo-referencing to the CRC members staffing the Office of the Response Coordinator and the USAID/Haiti Mission for the reconstruction and stabilization effort, including development of map products; procurement and dissemination of commercial maps and those produced by implementing partners; provision of technical assistance to the CRC on a variety of geographic information efforts; and provision of training as required.
• Human Resources Development Specialist: Provides support and guidance to CRC staff on education components of all USG reconstruction and stabilization activities.
• Infrastructure Lead Officer: The consultant shall be responsible to provide expert advice to the CRC members staffing the Office of the Response Coordinator on reconstruction of the infrastructure in Haiti, to include energy, transport, buildings, and water and sanitation sectors. Support the CRC’s reconstruction and stabilization efforts by coordinating general reconstruction and stabilization engineering functions in support of other technical specialists. Responsible for liaising with the Project Management Coordination Cell (PMCC) on Mobilization and Debris Management. He/she shall be required to liaise with the U.S. Military and other donors, NGOs, and the Government of Haiti on infrastructure priorities and coordination of activities. Supervise Infrastructure Specialist.
• Land Tenure Specialist: The consultant shall be asked to provide expert advice and guidance to CRC staff on land tenure issues, administration, and laws in Haiti for the purpose of supporting, planning and mobilizing the CRC’s reconstruction and stabilization activities.
• Logistics Officer: The consultant shall provide support to the CRC members staffing the Office of the Response Coordinator (ORC) in all aspects relating to logistics, including coordinating, consolidating, and ensuring smooth implementation of and adherence to logistic and security procedures. Ensuring the proper functioning of supply chain including procurement planning, purchasing of goods and services, and their transport and storage. Assisting the CRC by evaluating and reporting the need and ensuring the proper use of equipment, and assesses and ensures the functioning of the means of communication appropriate for the ORC. (Responsible for the security for the ORC.) Assessing, monitoring, and reporting the security situation and develops security procedures relevant to the context.
• NGO Facilitation Officer: The consultant will be responsible for facilitating coordination between Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and the CRC members staffing the Office of the Response Coordinator (ORC) on reconstruction and stabilization efforts. He/she will assure, to the maximum extent feasible, that the CRC members staffing the ORC are aware of NGO assistance in all relevant areas. Where possible, matches identified needs for reconstruction and stabilization activities with capacities among NGOs, minimizing gaps and imbalances in assistance. Report to the Donor Coordinator in the ORC, who is a member of the CRC.
• Phase III Transition Expert: The consultant will provide advice and guidance to the Director of the Office of the Response Coordinator (ORC) and other CRC members regarding the transition of the reconstruction and stabilization efforts from Phase II (Recovery) to Phase III (Reconstruction). The consultant will also assist the CRC members staffing the ORC with the determination of end state criteria for transition from Phase II to Phase III, and provide reports as needed to the CRC members staffing the ORC, USAID/Haiti, and other USAID offices involved in the reconstruction and stabilization effort.
• Private Enterprise Specialist: Provides technical support and advice to CRC staff regarding micro, small, and medium enterprises for the purpose of supporting, planning and mobilizing the CRC’s reconstruction and stabilization activities.
• Protection Specialist: The consultant will provide advice and guidance to CRC staff regarding protection mainstreaming within the CRC’s reconstruction and stabilization program, so as to reduce risks of harm, exploitation, and abuse for the earthquake-affected population. Further, the consultant is expected to provide advice and guidance to the CRC and its other supporting sector specialists and review and help plan activities to support protection interventions through implementing partners; the consultant will give advice and guidance to the CRC regarding protection monitoring for the earthquake-affected population to ensure that the needs of vulnerable populations are monitored.
• Secondary City Specialist: The specialist shall provide advice and guidance to CRC staff on development of secondary cities outside of Port-au-Prince including economic and infrastructure development of secondary cities for the purpose of supporting, planning and mobilizing the CRC’s reconstruction and stabilization activities.
• Shelter Specialist: The consultant will provide advice and guidance to CRC staff regarding shelter needs and priorities for their purpose of supporting, planning, and mobilizing the CRC’s reconstruction and stabilization activities.
• Urban Planning Specialist: The consultant will provide expert advice and guidance to the CRC staff on urban planning for the purpose of supporting, planning, and mobilizing the CRC’s reconstruction and stabilization activities.

LTL Strategies
4545 42nd St. NW – Suite 306
Washington, DC 20016
jobs@ltlstrategies.com
(V) 202.362.6800 (F) 202.362.6881
www.ltlstrategies.com
“Excellence and Ethics Combined for Measurable Results”

Job: Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) – Project Coordinator

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) seeks a qualified applicant for the position of Project Coordinator for a project being developed in Haiti that will manage a data collection effort aiming at measuring the impact of the relief effort and the introduction of mobile money services in the country. The position is located in Port-au-Prince and requires experience working on data collection in post-emergency settings. The principal investigators for this study are William Jack, Dean Karlan, and Tavneet Suri.

Project Coordinators work closely with academic researchers and other field staff to perform a variety of tasks including, but not limited to: designing survey questionnaires, conducting qualitative research, running pilot exercise, refining study design and surveying instruments, managing survey teams, negotiating contracts with survey firms, coordinating team communication, assisting in preliminary analysis, assisting in the writing of project reports and policy memos and coordinating with local partners running the programs being evaluated.

In particular, the Haiti Project Coordinator will be responsible for recruiting teams and setting up research operations in Haiti, as well as managing the data collection efforts.

Desired Qualifications and Experience
• A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree (preferred) in economics, social sciences, public policy, or related fields.
• Significant work and management experience in post-emergency settings.
• Significant experience in social science field research, previous survey and field experience a great advantage
• Fluency and excellent communication skills in English and French required
• Fluency and excellent communication skills in Kreyol preferred
• Excellent management and organizational skills along with strong quantitative skills; managerial experience and the
• ability to present positions and to negotiate with senior officials.
• Knowledge of Stata (strongly preferred)
• Flexibility, self-motivation, team spirit and an ability to manage multiple tasks efficiently
• Willingness to travel frequently in remote areas

We are looking for a minimun commitment of two years for this position, which will start as soon as possible and no later than September 2010.

To Apply

If you are interested, please do two things:

1. Complete the J-PAL/IPA common application indicating that you are interested in applying for a “Type 1″ position. Please note: you are not required to include transcripts or letters of recommendation upon initial submission. After submitting, you can edit your application at any time and may add these materials, if requested.

2. Send an email to jpaljobs@gmail.com, following these instructions exactly:
In the subject line: Put your full name, first (given) name followed by last (family) name.

Attachments: Please attach ONLY your CV.
In the email body: Copy exactly the following position line:
100192 IPAHaiti, Project Coordinator, Evaluating Relief Efforts and Mobile Money Services

Please do not include any text besides the position line(s) in the body of the e-mail. Adding extra text will interfere with the processing of your application.

If you are applying to multiple positions, you can put multiple positions lines in the same email. And you may send multiple such emails. However, please do not do this for more than 10 positions per every 6 month period. So, if you put 10 position lines in one email, then that counts as ten. Or if you put 4 in one email, and 6 in another, that also counts as ten.

J-PAL and IPA work closely together to conduct rigorous impact evaluations to test and improve the effectiveness of poverty reduction programs. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted for an interview.

Medals for Haiti recovery, little for homeless

By JONATHAN M. KATZ (AP)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haiti’s president handed out medals to celebrities, aid-group directors and politicians for post-earthquake work Monday in a ceremony designed to beat back criticism of an uneven recovery that has left 1.6 million people homeless and destitute six months to the day since the disaster.

Just out of sight, baking in the oppressive noonday sun, were the fraying tarps of tens of thousands of homeless who live on the Champ de Mars, once a grassy promenade surrounding the government complex.

“That is just a way to put the people to sleep. But the people are suffering,” Edouard James, a 32-year-old vendor said when he was told of the ceremony. Unable to find a job with his degree in diplomacy, he sells pirated DVDs in a tarp-covered booth.

“We are tired of the NGOs … saying we will have a better life and better conditions, and then nothing happens,” he said.

Twenty-three honorees — including actor Sean Penn, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission — crossed a podium in front of the crushed, unrepaired national palace to steady applause. Some smiling, some solemn, each received medals and certificates deeming them Knights of the National Order of Honor and Merit.

President Rene Preval, whose successor is to be elected in November, defended the response to the quake. He said in two speeches during the ceremony that hard-to-see successes — like the avoidance of massive disease outbreaks and violence — obviates the perception that not enough has been done.

“There are people who did not see all the big efforts that were deployed during the emergency stage: distributing tents, water, food, installing latrines, providing health care during the six months that have just gone by,” Preval said. “It is a major, major task.”

The ceremony was resolutely upbeat. The focus was on successes past and plans going forward, with little talk of the 230,000 to 300,000 people killed in the magnitude-7 temblor.

The president and prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, both used the occasion to announce that a six-month emergency phase has ended and that reconstruction has begun.

The distinction was lost on some Haitians.

“I don’t know if I’m mad or happy,” Anne Bernard, a 24-year-old mother of two living in a metal shack a few hundred yards from the national palace. “All I know is they haven’t done anything.”

The most visible early-emergency programs like massive food distributions have stopped, and there still are few tangible effects of $3.1 billion in humanitarian aid for all but a handful of those left homeless by the quake, who rely on plastic tarps for shelter.

Tarp-and-tent camps are growing instead of shrinking. Just 5,657 transitional shelters have been built of a promised 125,000, which even if completed would not be nearly enough for everyone.

When building materials finally get through customs, there is nowhere to put them. Fights over land rights, customs delays and systemically slow coordination between aid groups and the government have hampered nearly everything. The Associated Press reported Sunday that the location of the largest of two relocation camps provided by the government was the result of an inside deal.

Compounding the problem in the city is that almost no rubble has been cleared. Preval said Monday it would take $1.5 billion to remove all of it.

Meanwhile donors have met 10 percent of a promised $5.3 billion in reconstruction aid — separate from the humanitarian aid — mostly by forgiving debts, not providing cash.

Clinton, who also received a medal, said it will be his mission in coming weeks to make sure donors meet their pledges. He acknowledged that more could have been done, but that recovery has so far been faster than the rebuilding of coastal Indonesia following the 2004 tsunami.

“To those who say we have not done enough, I think all of us who are working in this area agree this is a harder job (than the tsunami),” Clinton said. “Viewed comparatively I think the Haitian government and the people who are working here have done well in the last six months.”

CNN’s Cooper, who spent part of January in Haiti following the quake and had not returned since, said he found out about the award while getting ready to board his plane to Haiti on Sunday.

“I thought a long time about not accepting it. We finally came to the opinion that it was recognition by the country for all journalists,” he told resident reporters after the ceremony. “I don’t think this in any way impacts the desire or willingness to be critical of the government.”

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Mayor Builds Palace Among Haiti Rubble

As more than 1 million people remain homeless after the January earthquake that destroyed parts of Haiti, the mayor of one town builds a luxurious palace among the rubble…

http://www.justnews.com/video/24230298/index.html

Offensive Comment Made on “The Game”

“The Game” is a show on the CW with the popular actress Tia Mowry (formerly of Sister, Sister).  On “The Negotiation” episode, one of the actresses makes a rude comment about Haitians (in regards to their financial position).

A friend of mine pointed this out to me and you can hear it for yourself below.  The comment is made at 1:10.  If you’re having problems viewing the video below, here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xTcypvjVnc&fmt=18.

My friend said that she was going to write a letter to the show’s producers and writers because the comment was “offensive and unnecessary.”    Watch it for yourself and tell me what you think.  Do you think my friend is overreacting and being overly sensitive?  If not, would writing the producers really make a difference?

Redpumpz

Barack Obama Rally in Petionville!

Barack Obama
for President of the USA!

Support Rally
Wednesday, Oct 1st, 6-9 pm

Café Terrasse
Rue Grégoire, Pétionville

Entertainment, Cash Bar, Speeches, T-shirts,
Obama-Mania !

As a reminder, registration and absentee ballot deadlines are approaching.  If you are an American citizen living in Haiti and need to register/request and absentee ballot, go to www.fvap.gov.  If you have friends or family living in the US, encourage them to go to www.voteforchange.com, to register to vote in the US on election day.  If you need assistance with registration or sending your completed forms to the US, email haitianamericansforobama@gmail.com.

Rally invitation attached – please feel free to print and share!

Dominican Crackdown Leaves Children of Haitian Immigrants in Legal Limbo

SAN PEDRO DE MACORIS, Dominican Republic — Two obsessions define this
country: baseball and Haiti. Ángel Luis Joseph, a teenage outfielder with a
hot bat, is caught between Dominicans’ devotion to the one and disdain for
the other.

So many major leaguers have emerged from this sugar town that agents keep an
eye on even pint-size players with potential. Ángel, 17, was only a lanky
grade school boy when his coach noticed he showed all the signs of becoming a
standout. Before long, the San Francisco Giants came calling with a $350,000
offer, he said.

But then politics interfered with his dream. To obtain a visa to the United
States, Ángel went to a local government office to get a copy of his birth
certificate. Little did he know that the Dominican government had recently
begun a crackdown on the children of Haitian immigrants, even those like him
who have lived their whole lives in the Dominican Republic.

“If your last name is weird, they won’t give you your documents,” he
said. “Same thing if your skin is dark like mine.”

Ángel’s request for his birth record was denied, prompting the Giants to
withdraw the offer.

His parents, like hundreds of thousands of others, moved from Haiti to the
Dominican Republic in the 1970s to work in the sugar cane fields. Their
children were born in the Dominican Republic, grew up here and became, in their
eyes at least, full-fledged Dominicans. They speak Spanish, dance merengue and
play “pelota,” the popular name for the Dominican pastime baseball.

“They don’t play baseball in Haiti,” said Melanie Teff, who has studied
the issue for Refugees International, an advocacy group in Washington. “That
shows how Dominican this guy and many people like him are.”

The government does not necessarily agree, and Ángel awaits a ruling on his
appeal for access to his Dominican birth record.

The issue arose with a fury several years ago when advocates took the
government to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, whose jurisdiction the
Dominican Republic acknowledges, to protest the denial of birth certificates to
two ethnic Haitian children.

While the case was in process, the government changed its migration law in 2004
to specifically exclude the offspring of Haitian migrants from citizenship. The
Dominican Constitution grants citizenship to those born on Dominican soil,
except the children of diplomats and those “in transit.” That has long
meant that the children of immigrants, no matter their legal status, gained
Dominican citizenship.

After the international court ruled against the Dominican government in 2005,
ordering that damages be paid to the two children, the Dominican Supreme Court
said that Haitian workers were considered “in transit” and that their
children were therefore Haitian, not Dominican.

Last spring, the government agency in charge of identity documents, the Joint
Electoral Council, issued a memorandum telling its employees to watch for the
offspring of foreigners trying to identify themselves as Dominican. It now
hangs at every clerk’s office and is shown to people thought to have Haitian
blood.

“The issue of Haiti has become very combustible in the Dominican context,”
said Daniel Erikson, director of Caribbean programs at the Inter-American
Dialogue, a research group in Washington. “You have a deep resentment of
Haiti, and that’s driving these responses that don’t reflect favorably on
the country.”

Government officials point out the strain that poor illegal immigrants from
Haiti put on the Dominican Republic. The two countries share the island of
Hispaniola but have vastly different levels of development.

Of course, Haitians contribute, too. They have long worked in the jobs
Dominicans did not want to do, mostly cutting cane on plantations that supply
sugar to the United States. The government has not just known of their presence
for decades but has in some cases encouraged their arrival.

The Dominican government says the new crackdown is a security matter, aimed at
wiping out fraud. And in some cases over the years, young Haitians who had
crossed the border illegally claimed to have been born on the Dominican side.

But opponents accuse the government of applying its 2004 law retroactively,
which they call an illegal practice that has longstanding societal animosity
against Haitians at its heart.

“The racist beliefs of some are being used to twist our laws,” said
Cristóbal Rodríguez Gómez, a Dominican constitutional law professor at
Ibero-American University, who is acting as counsel for another descendant of
Haitians who lacks documents. “This is a crime, a monstrous crime.”

In a recent report, two United Nations experts found “a profound and
entrenched problem of racism and discrimination” in the Dominican Republic,
mostly affecting people of Haitian origin. The report said Haitians and their
descendants face “extreme vulnerability, unjustified deportations, racial
discrimination, and are denied the full enjoyment of their human rights.”

The Dominican government rejected the conclusions, portraying the relationship
between the neighbors as one of solidarity.

Ángel is one of many who find their lives in limbo under the new rules. Emildo
Bueno Oguis, 33, a college student who recently married an American woman,
could not get his birth certificate either and therefore cannot apply to the
American Embassy for residency to join her in Florida.

Mr. Oguis, whom Mr. Rodríguez represents, challenged the government’s
decision in court, accusing the council of denying his rights. But his claim
was rejected, despite the fact that he had previously been issued a Dominican
identity card and a Dominican passport.

Confusing the matter, a lower court judge ruled in favor of another descendant
of Haitian immigrants, Nuny Angra Luis, who had been denied her birth
certificate. That decision was announced the same week in April as the other,
diametrically opposed ruling.

Demetrio F. Francisco de Los Santos, a government lawyer, dismisses the notion
that anyone’s rights are being violated. Descendants of Haitians, he argues
in court documents, can simply go to the nearest Haitian consulate for their
documents.

While Haitian law does grant citizenship to the offspring of Haitians, the
issue is complex. Ángel’s parents would have to prove they are Haitian for
him to get citizenship in Haiti, a country which he has never visited.

While some are indignant about the Dominican crackdown, Ángel seems
surprisingly calm.

Before a recent practice, in which he flagged fly balls and then fired them
into the infield, Ángel said his mother could not sleep after he lost the
Giants contract. (“Ángel Luis Joseph is one of a number of players in the
Dominican that clubs are finding do not have the proper paperwork to prove
their identity or age,” the Giants said in a statement, indicating that the
team had been forced to look for someone else.)

Ángel may have another shot. The Cleveland Indians have come calling, he said,
visiting the humble shack that he shares with his parents and seven siblings
just outside a sugarcane field.

The Indians’ offer was about a third of that put forward by the Giants, but
still a windfall for a boy from a batey, the name for the workers’ camps that
grow up around sugar cane plantations.

But while he awaits a ruling, he acknowledges worrying that he will see his
dream disappear a second time.

“God wants me to be a baseball player — that I know,” he said. What he
does not know is whether the Dominican Republic, the country he considers
himself from, agrees.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/world/americas/25dominican.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Ex-teacher gets 7 years for Enslaving Haitian Teen

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (AP) — A former teacher was sentenced Tuesday to more than seven years in prison for forcing a Haitian girl to work as a slave for years in her South Florida home.

Maude Paulin, 52, admitted that she had made mistakes in bringing Simone Celestin to the U.S. and apologized for what happened but insisted that she wanted only good things for the girl.

“I love Simone with all my heart,” Paulin told Senior U.S. District Judge Jose A. Gonzalez Jr. at a sentencing hearing. “I regret it. I blame myself.”

Paulin’s ex-husband, Saintfort Paulin, was sentenced to house arrest for a lesser role.

The sentence imposed by Gonzalez on Maude Paulin was at the low end of federal guidelines but is still higher than prison terms in many similar cases. Prosecutor Edward Chung of the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division said a stiff sentence was important to deter others.

“This is an extremely serious crime,” Chung said.

Paulin, her 74-year-old mother, Evelyn Theodore, and Saintfort Paulin were convicted in March for their roles in forcing Celestin to work 15 hours a day at their Miami home. Celestin, who was living at a Haitian orphanage, was brought to the U.S. in 1999 at age 14 and escaped from the home in 2005.

Prosecutors said Celestin is one of thousands of Haitian children, known by the Creole term “restaveks,” who are forced into involuntary servitude both in Haiti and in the U.S. UNICEF has estimated that up to 17,500 such people are brought to the U.S. each year to become slaves.

Testimony showed that Celestin got virtually no schooling, was frequently threatened and beaten, and was forced to sleep on the floor. Celestin testified that she thought about killing herself.

Saintfort Paulin, who was convicted only of harboring an illegal alien without financial gain, was sentenced to 18 months’ probation, including six months of house arrest. He told Gonzalez that he left the home in 2001 and that Celestin’s treatment was his ex-wife’s idea.

“I ended up going along willingly. I’m sorry for what transpired,” said Saintfort Paulin, who now lives in New Jersey.

Sentencing was postponed for Theodore because she suffered a stroke shortly after the jury verdict and is incompetent for court proceedings, court papers show.

Gonzalez said Maude Paulin and her mother are liable for more than $162,000 in restitution to Celestin. They were convicted of conspiring to violate Celestin’s 13th Amendment rights to be free from slavery, of illegally forcing her to work for them and of harboring an alien for financial gain.

About two dozen of Maude Paulin’s friends and relatives jammed the courtroom for the hearing, where she was seeking a lenient sentence, possibly even probation. Daughter Erica Paulin said her mother was generous and caring, especially for the plight of children in poverty-plagued Haiti.

“My mother is an inspiration to her friends and her family, to so many people,” Erica Paulin said. “She is not a monster.”

But Chung said the defendant simply won’t admit that she did something wrong.

“Maude Paulin does not to this day acknowledge that she committed this crime,” Chung said.

Maude Paulin, who taught middle school in Miami-Dade County, will be forced to surrender her Florida teaching certificate. Partly because of her mother’s illness, Gonzalez agreed to allow her to remain free until July 30.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Charity: Aid Workers Raping, Abusing children

By Stephanie Busari For CNN

LONDON, England (CNN) – Humanitarian aid workers and United Nation peacekeepers are sexually abusing small children in war-ravaged countries, a leading European charity has said.

Children like this 15-year-old girl have suffered abuse at the hands of some UN soldiers and aid workers.

Children as young as 6 have been forced to have sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in return for food and money, Save the Children UK said in a report released Tuesday.

After interviewing hundreds of children, the charity said it found instances of rape, child prostitution, pornography, indecent sexual assault and trafficking of children for sex.

“It is hard to imagine a more grotesque abuse of authority or flagrant violation of children’s rights,” Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK, said.

In the report, “No One To Turn To” a 15-year-old girl from Haiti told researchers: “My friends and I were walking by the National Palace one evening when we encountered a couple of humanitarian men. The men called us over and showed us their penises.

“They offered us 100 Haitian gourdes ($2.80) and some chocolate if we would suck them. I said, ‘No,’ but some of the girls did it and got the money.”

Save the Children says almost as shocking as the abuse itself, is the “chronic under-reporting” of the abuses. It believes that thousands more children around the world could be suffering in silence.

According to the charity, children told researchers they were too frightened to report the abuse, fearful that the abuser would come back to hurt them and that they would stop receiving aid from agencies, or even be punished by their family or community.

“People don’t report it because they are worried that the agency will stop working here, and we need them,” a teenage boy in southern Sudan told Save the Children.

The charity’s research was centered on Ivory Coast, southern Sudan and Haiti, but Save the Children said the perpetrators of sexual abuse of children could be found in every type of humanitarian organization at all levels.

Save the Children is calling for a global watchdog to tackle the problem and said it was working with the U.N. to establish local mechanisms that will allow victims to easily report abuse.

“We are glad that Save the Children continues to shed a light on this problem. It actually follows up on a report that we did in 2002 with Save the Children. I think every population in the world has to confront this problem of exploitation and abuse of children,” said Ron Redmond, chief spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland.

“The United Nations has a zero-tolerance policy. It’s one that UNHCR takes very, very seriously. In refugee camps, we have implemented very strong reporting mechanisms so that refugees can come forward to report any abuses or alleged abuses.”

In 2003, U.N. Nepalese troops were accused of sexual abuse while serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Six soldiers were later jailed.

A year later, two U.N. peacekeepers were repatriated after being accused of abuse in Burundi, while U.N. troops also were accused of rape and sexual abuse in Sudan.

Last year, the U.N. launched an investigation into sexual abuse claims in Ivory Coast.

The vast majority of aid workers were not involved in any form of abuse or exploitation, but in “life-saving essential humanitarian work,” Save the Children’s Whitbread said.

But humanitarian and peacekeeping agencies working in emergency situations “must own up to the fact that they are vulnerable to this problem and tackle it head on,” she said.

The aid agency said it had fired three workers for breaching its codes and called on others to do the same. The three men were dismissed in the past year for having had sex with girls aged 17 — which the charity said is not illegal but is cause for loss of employment.

Other UK charities said they supported Save the Children’s call for a global watchdog.

“Oxfam takes a zero-tolerance approach to sexual misconduct by its aid workers. All our staff across the world are held accountable by a robust code of conduct,” Jane Cocking, Oxfam charity’s humanitarian director said.

“We support Save the Children’s calls for a global watchdog. We will do all we can to stamp out this intolerable abuse.”

For Haiti’s Jobless, No Cost to Play. But Losers Pay.

By MARC LACEY

 

Published: April 23, 2008

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — There was pain in Jean François’s eyes, real suffering, an awful look of woe.

It might have been that he had little to eat that day, or his lack of a job or any real hope of securing one. Perhaps it stemmed from the squalor in his neighborhood, a sprawling and rather depressing slum of tin-roofed houses.

Looking on, one wanted to help this desperate 29-year-old man, console him, somehow help him break out of what was clearly a deep funk.

But there was nothing to be done. It turns out that Mr. François’s life was not the immediate source of his desperation. It was his losing streak — and the dozens of clothespins clipped onto his face, arms and belly.

In marked contrast to Mr. François’s glum look, the other men crowding around a raucous domino game under way in Port-au-Prince’s Cité Soleil neighborhood on a recent afternoon were smiling with glee. They doubled over in laughter every time they looked at Mr. François. A chorus of roars rang out each time he lost another game and more of the clips were attached to his ears, cheeks, chin, forearms and midriff.

The ears, everyone agreed, are particularly painful when clipped. Eventually, after losing and then losing some more, Mr. François could take no more. “It hurts so bad,” he said, rising from the rickety table and pulling off the clips one by one. Another player quickly moved in, nudging Mr. François aside and taking a turn. Everybody needs an escape, and in Haiti, where times are always tough and where food riots broke out across the country recently, dominoes offers just that.

“It kills time,” said Tousaint Chavane, 61, a father of seven children who was playing, and winning, on a recent afternoon. “It helps you forget.” Those who have some money to spend might go to cockfights or play the lottery, which uses the same winning numbers as the New York State Lottery just to avoid any claims of fixing.

But the beauty of dominoes is that it requires not even a single gourde, Haiti’s currency, to compete. That is not to say, however, that there is no price to pay.

Dominoes are played in two-person teams or with each player competing individually. Clothespins are merely one of many techniques Haitians employ to punish those who lose four games in a row.

Some approaches focus less on pain and more on ridicule, like forcing a losing player to wear an empty sugar sack over his head or a brightly colored oversized hat. Other losers might have powder wiped on their faces, turning their brown skin white, or be forced to wear a heavy coat so they suffer in the heat.

The particular method of suffering depends on the rules at a particular table that day, which vary widely across the country.

Losers are sometimes made to salute any person who approaches the table.

Or to drink a glass of water every time they lose a game, with no bathroom breaks.

Or to fetch any domino that another player tosses away from the table, even if it happens to land in a sewage ditch.

On any given day, the players say, anyone can end up a loser.

“You can’t really say who’s the best,” said Harry Degrave, 38, a father of six and regular at the domino tables of Cité Soleil. “One day it might be him. One day it’s that guy. Then it might be me. What we don’t like is someone who brags too much. We all want him to lose, and to suffer.”

At another game, in the Juvénat neighborhood, the players were throwing back homemade liquor, and the effects were clearly evident.

As a rather competitive match went on under a shade tree, Excellent Fontus, 67, was clowning around and talking about how good things were in the old days, before most of the young players had been born.

“You’re all playing dominoes, and when you get home you’ll still be hungry!” he taunted them.

Pulling a coin out of his pocket, he said: “Back in the day, you could buy so much with this. Now you need a bag of money, and even that doesn’t go so far.”

Everybody nodded, although the clank of the dominoes being slammed hard on the table did not let up as the old man spoke.

The clothespins in this particular match were affixed only to the losers’ forearms, a variation on the game. François Mondesir, 40, an occasional construction worker who plays dominoes during those many days that he cannot find work to do, had not won in a while.

“It makes the game fun,” he said, after he had been ousted from the table and was rubbing his sore arms. “The longer you have those things on, the more they hurt. It makes you forget all that’s bothering you.”

Over by the National Cemetery, the unemployed gravediggers and groundskeepers used a different technique to punish losing players. Metal weights — actually pieces of iron from the cemetery gate — were tied to a rope and then thrown over the loser’s shoulder. As time went on, the strain of the load was obvious.

“We don’t have any jobs,” complained Yves Beauvil, 58, a father of three who was losing that day. “If we weren’t playing dominoes, what would we do?”

As for the load on his left shoulder, Mr. Beauvil shrugged it off as a mere inconvenience. “I can handle it,” he said, prompting his fellow players to break out in smiles.