Lumos Submission for the Universal Periodic Review of the Republic of Haiti

Lumos welcomes the adoption of the 2016-2018 strategy of the Institut du Bien-Être Social et de Recherches (IBESR) at the end of 2015 and the Adoption Act of August 29, 2013, which restricts international adoption to accredited agencies under IBESR supervision. It points to the Decree Law of December 22, 1971, under which children can be placed as orphans, children with a disability or children in need, and to Law No. CL/2014-0010 on trafficking, which sets penalties of seven to 15 years' imprisonment but has led to no convictions according to the 2015 Trafficking in Persons report.

Lumos reports that institutionalization is widespread: IBESR estimates about 760 orphanages, less than 15 percent of them officially registered, and rough estimates put the number of children in them at around 32,000, 80 percent of whom have one or two living parents. It states that placement with a substitute family under a pilot framework is the only family-based alternative available, that children in institutions and in domestic service are at high risk of trafficking, and that the lack of an effective birth registration system hampers tracking. The submission closes with recommendations to the Haitian authorities.