United Nations says children make up 50 percent of gang members in Haiti

As gangs in Haiti continue to be roiling the Caribbean nation as a result of violence and political and economic instability, according to the UN, children now make up about half of the population.

As she and other officials pushed for more funding in Haiti, UNICEF’s (UNICEF) director, Catherine Russell, made the “alarming” statistics public on Thursday.

According to Russell, “children currently make up a shocking 50% of the armed groups active today.”

Children are being forced to play combat roles and engage in armed conflict. Others are being abused as domestic workers who use porters, lookouts, and couriers to carry weapons.

She continued, noting that there are more recruits in the pipeline. In comparison to&nbsp, the same period last year, child participation in gang activities, including recruitment, increased by 700% in the first three months of the year.

That was a result of Haiti’s increasing number of children who were the victims of human rights violations.

More than 2, 000 serious crimes against minors were reported by the UN in 2024, an increase of 500% from the previous year.

In Haiti, especially in the wake of Jovenel Moise’s assassination in 2021, criminal organizations and gangs have grown in size.

Nearly 1.3 million Haitians have fled their homes as a result of the violence, with half of them thought to be young people.

As much as 90% of the city is now under the control of gangs, according to a previous UN warning that the capital, Port-au-Prince, has been given “near-total control.”

As a result, roads are being blocked, public services are being cut, and food prices are skyrocketing.

Political corruption has long been cited as a motivator for the expansion of territorial control and power in Haitian gangs. However, gang violence has increased significantly because nearly 5, 000 people were killed in all between October and June alone.

The widespread bloodshed has been addressed by both the Haitian government and the international community.

UN Security Council approved a Kenya-led mission to assist Haiti’s police in October 2023, but those forces have struggled to gain traction and have been hampered by limited funding and resources.

Given the country’s disastrous history of colonial and military occupation, critics have also feared that foreign intervention might occur.

Dorothy Shea, the ambassador of the United States, stated at a UN Security Council meeting that Panama and her country would discuss a draft resolution to form a security force to combat gangs.

How the UN-backed security force’s current combination would be impacted.

However, the Haitian government has recently pressed for greater cooperation with private security companies, including Vectus Global, which is led by private military entrepreneur Erik Prince, who has links to US President Donald Trump.

In August, the UN reported that less than 10% of the Haitian crisis’s funding goal had been met.

Migrants and refugees fleeing Haiti’s upheaval have struggled to find safety in other nations despite the level of violence there.