Traffickers Use Quake to Nab Children

Sitting in my little East Texas hideaway this weekend I told my spouse: Five bucks says that slavers use the quake as a way to snatch kids from Haiti.

The Australian news service, ABC, published a note on Saturday that Children are already disappearing from hospitals and UNICEF is worried. How many have been snatched from shanties or camps and will be presumed dead as part of the quake?

Trafficking networks were springing into action immediately after the disaster and taking advantage of the weakness of local authorities and relief coordination "to kidnap children and get them out of the country".

A note for all of these human interest "adopt a kid from Haiti" stories that are flooding the press:

"We have documented around 15 cases of children disappearing from hospitals and not with their own family at the time," said UNICEF adviser Jean Luc Legrand.

"UNICEF has been working in Haiti for many years and we knew the problem with the trade of children in Haiti that existed already beforehand.

"Unfortunately, many of these trade networks have links with the international adoption market."

The agency said it had warned countries during the past week not to step up adoptions from Haiti in the immediate wake of the quake.