Orphanages

If someone, be it an individual or a politician, supports a project in Haiti it is usually an orphanage. The problem is that orphanages in Haiti are a business albeit one with almost no oversight and accountability.  The vast majority of the children in orphanages have at least one parent. The smarter investments would be promoting access to family planning so families have only as many children as they can afford and establishing a foster care network throughout the country so that children can be in safe family environments instead.  This is not to say all orphanages are bad - but there is a better way and the Haitian government has failed to protect children from the abuse, sexual and otherwise, that often takes place in these institutions.  More information follows in a CNN Freedom Project article by Lisa Cohen.  

Individuals and groups give more than $70 million in donations every year to hundreds of orphanages in Haiti.  However, these orphanages vary wildly in terms of accountability - some are well-managed while others abuse and exploit children.  Children in orphanages should have their rights respected and opportunities for a better future.  It is important to remember though that most childen in Haitian orphanages are not orphans.  They are children from large families that could not afford to take care of them.  If their parents had consistent access to family planning, there would be far less need for orphanages in the first place.  Children's Rights NGO Lumos advises that funding would be better spent on helping Haiti to develop a proper foster care and adoption system.  The full article on this subject by Anastasia Moloney of the Reuters Foundation follows. 

Each year, the U.S. State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor is mandated to release country specific human rights reports that address individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As this report pertains strictly to 2009, it does not address human rights issues in post earthquake Haiti. Still, it is highly relevant as long term recovery and reconstruction will depend in part upon creating a culture that respects human rights and a government that can enforce them.