What I Told Members of the UN Security Council About the Recruitment and Use of Children in Haiti—and What We Need to Do Next

I was speaking at an Arria-Formula Meeting on Safe Education to Prevent the Recruitment and Use of Children in Armed Conflict, held to mark Red Hand Day (the International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers) observed each February as a reminder of the international community’s obligation to end this practice.  

Here is what I told the room: 

When education and safety collapse, child recruitment flourishes. Today, more than three million children in Haiti need humanitarian assistance. One in six is internally displaced due to violence. Our capital, Port-au-Prince, is more than 90% controlled by armed groups. 

There is no safe place for the city’s children. They cannot play outside without risking crossfire. They cannot move between neighborhoods. They cannot go to school. 

It is now a common sight to see children—some as young as 10—holding guns. 

An estimated 30–50% of armed group members in Haiti are children. Child recruitment skyrocketed by 200% in 2025. 

Behind each of these numbers is a child—forced to fight, used as a porter or a spy, exploited, and robbed of their future. Many are used as shields in clashes with the police. 

Child recruitment like this does not happen in a vacuum. 

At Save the Children, we see consistently—in Haiti and around the world—that recruitment thrives where children are hungry, out of school, displaced, or separated from their caregivers. Haiti is one of the world’s top five hunger hotspots. More than 1,600 schools have closed due to violence, cutting 243,000 children off from education—and for many of them, the only meal they receive each day. 

Armed groups fill this void deliberately. Many children are recruited with just the promise of a pair of sneakers, $100, and the certainty of a reliable meal. As one of Save the Children’s local partners in Port-au-Prince told us: "Displacement sites in the capital are an open floodgate for recruitment—because an empty belly has no ears." 

These are some of the children behind the statistics:

I think of  Piere*, a sixteen-year-old who was recruited three years ago after living on the streets. He was forced to carry out robberies to prove himself before being promoted to a fighter. He recounted watching a friend even younger than him die during an operation.  

Through one of our partners, we are supporting Piere with group therapy and working to locate his parents. 

I think of the mother who told us her son joined an armed group because she could not feed him. I think of her shame. Of her terror for his safety. Her hope that he might return—and her dread that if he did, his own community would kill him in retaliation. 

These stories are not unique. We cannot let them become the story of a generation. 

It has been more than 16 years since Haiti's 2010 earthquake. Many of the families we work with have been displaced eight, nine, ten times in that period—their lives a series of crises with no recovery between them. Many of the armed group leaders today—and those in their ranks — were children themselves in 2010. Their education disrupted, their communities destroyed, their futures never rebuilt. 

Now we are watching it happen again. The unaccompanied children in displacement sites today—separated from their families, orphaned, hungry—are being offered the same path Piere was offered. We have a narrow window to ensure they don’t take it. 

Here is what I asked the international community to do:

First: the Haiti Gang Suppression Force, due to begin deploying in April, must be operationally prepared to treat recruited children as victims of grave violations — not combatants. 

The UN Security Council laid out strong safeguarding measures in the Force’s mandate, requiring that “child protection be taken fully into account in the planning and conduct of its operations”, and that dedicated child protection advisors be included. These safeguards must be swiftly and transparently implemented.  

Second: we need to cut off the stream of recruitment where we can. If an empty belly has no ears, then we must fill it. That means funding integrated, child-focused programs that address the interconnected crises driving children toward armed groups—displacement, hunger, lack of education, and lack of protection.  

This crisis does not operate in silos. Neither should our response. Children who have been recruited into armed groups need robust child protection support to get out, regain their futures, and break the cycle of violence. And we must resource the local child protection actors who are already on the frontlines doing this work. 

Third: education must be central. For children in crisis, a safe school provides normality, a reliable meal, and a consistent entry point through which we can deliver the full range of humanitarian support. It shields children from violence, exploitation, and sexual abuse—and remains our most powerful counter-recruitment tool. If Haiti is to have a road to recovery, it must begin in the classroom. 

Armed groups are offering Haiti’s children one meal a day. The international community has the resources, mandate, and the tools to offer something far more powerful than that: safety, learning, and a future worth living. 

*Name changed to protect identity