A/HRC/20/35 Gender-based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Settings,21 drawn up by the United Nations and other international organizations, is a tool that should be more extensively disseminated, as it contains a large number of specific recommendations that remain applicable to the situation in Haiti. C. Children 82. The situation of children has been largely documented by Haitian civil society organizations and international organizations. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) continues to provide excellent technical assistance, documentation, identification, family reunification and shelter, care and protection. 83. The Independent Expert should like to commend the work carried out by the new management team of the Social Welfare and Research Institute, which has a clear vision of the strategies to draw up and implement to fulfil the mission entrusted to the Institute in its founding text.22 Its financial and human resources are, however, inadequate and it would be worth allocating additional resources under the budget appropriations bills. 84. The measures recommended in the previous report have been implemented, guaranteeing effective supervision of illegal children’s institutions and the closure of those that do not conform to legal requirements. The number of undeclared centres has fallen, a survey of centres has been completed and a database set up, allowing the quality of care and accommodation to be monitored, as well as the risk of abuse for commercial purposes or trafficking. The Independent Expert calls on international organizations and donor countries to no longer fund centres that function outside the law. 85. The Independent Expert recalls once more that adoption must take place in a carefully structured context, and only when all the necessary guarantees are in place, and that it must not be considered a humanitarian gesture. He regrets, however, that Haiti has still not ratified the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of Intercountry Adoption. An organization responsible for international adoption must be established within the legal framework envisaged to replace the laws of 1974, which are no longer appropriate. It would also be helpful if the countries of adopting families would cease putting pressure on the Haitian Government to resume adoptions until the envisaged legal framework has been adopted. 86. The Independent Expert recalls that, according to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2,400 Haitian children were internationally adopted following the earthquake, which is double the number adopted from Haiti in 2006 and 6 per cent of total global intercountry adoptions, from a population of only 10 million.23 A significant number of these adoptions took place outside any legal framework. Despite measures taken by the Government to tackle the problem, credible accounts continue to report trafficking in children through institutions that take on children at a very young age and place them in crèches before presenting them to candidate adoptive parents. 21 22 23 16 http://www.womenwarpeace.org/docs/GBV_Guidelines_pdf. Decree of 24 November 1983. Press conference held by the Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on 28 February 2012 in Port-au-Prince. GE.12-13208