A/HRC/14/44 ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. Children 31. Children are particularly vulnerable in crises and humanitarian disasters, and their vulnerability is intensified by their separation from their families or habitual environment, the lack of restrictions on their behaviour, and the ambient violence of the streets and camps. These circumstances expose them to networks of traffickers, who did of course exist before the earthquake but who are now taking advantage of a situation which facilitates their criminal activities. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other specialized agencies have done excellent work in terms of documentation, identification, family reunification, and provision of shelter, care and protection. However, owing to the large numbers of children isolated or even orphaned as a result of the mass displacement of people to other towns, the risks of kidnapping, illegal adoption and sexual violence against children persist. There remains a large number of unaccompanied children and children taken in by other families under circumstances which encourage resort to the restavek system,9 which existed before the humanitarian crisis. The independent expert is particularly worried about the allegations of a certain volume of trafficking in children across the border with the Dominican Republic. He recommends that the work of UNICEF and other specialized agencies should receive broad support and that, in the context of the efforts to combat the restavek phenomenon, use should be made of the recommendations contained in the report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, concerning her mission to Haiti (A/HRC/12/21/Add.1) and in his own previous report (A/HRC/11/5). 32. Foreign families which have prepared adoption papers want the adoption to be completed quickly, sometimes at risk of circumventing the legal procedures put in place by the Haitian authorities. Even before the disaster, attempts to kidnap children or to circumvent adoption procedures had been documented. Other allegations refer to adoption or attempted adoption by families wishing to help children in distress. According to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, international adoption should be envisaged only as a last resort, when all internal alternatives have been exhausted and only after the competent authorities have verified the lack of a relative or guardian to take care of the child. It is thus a matter for the Haitian authorities, with the support of MINUSTAH, to ensure that appropriate arrangements and safeguards are introduced to prevent children from being removed from their country without undergoing a complete legal procedure of international adoption. 33. Owing to the unsafe condition of buildings and the mass displacement of population, a very large number of children have been compelled to interrupt their schooling indefinitely, a circumstance which further aggravates a difficult situation in Haiti where the right to education is concerned. 3. Persons with disabilities 34. Before the earthquake Haiti already had 800,000 persons with disabilities, i.e. a tenth of the country’s population; today, the proportion of persons who have lost a limb or have become paraplegic or tetraplegic will have exploded as a result of the earthquake and its aftershocks. According to Michel Péan, Secretary of State for the Integration of Persons with Disabilities, more than 5,000 persons have acquired disabilities as a result of injuries caused by the earthquake. The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has pointed out that, under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, States 9 The restavek (from “reste avec” (stay with)) are children, often from large rural families, who are sent to live with other rural or urban families, where they are supposed to receive education in exchange for domestic work. They are forced to work and often suffer exploitation, including sexual exploitation, and do not necessarily obtain the promised education. GE.10-13204 (EXT) 9