ARTICLE - D.R. - HAITIAN CHILDREN BEGGING RING

DOMINICAN AGENTS BUST FIRST HAITIAN CHILDREN BEGGING RING
(Dominican Today) -

Santo Domingo.- Despite the authorities’ repeated denials that the many young Haitian beggars in streets across the country wasn’t the work of people traffickers, the Immigration Agency on Wednesday rescued 44 minors from a network in the subdivision Los Alcarrizos, becoming the first time a Government agency busts such a ring.

Immigration director Sigfrido Pared presented 10 suspects of a network he affirms distributed Haitian children in Santo Domingo avenues beg from motorists and pedestrians, and then take their collections. He said the sweep began at 6 a.m. today in the sector Los Alcarrizos, with Immigration agents, Justice Ministry officials and Armed Forces Intel.

Interviewed by the network CDN by phone, Pared said he met with representatives of the children protection agency Conani and of the International Organization for Migrations (OIM), to take some of the children to their parents in Haiti. “There’s one case where a mother had given her child to a close friend in Haiti, and now the family is asking for the child.”

The official said the traffickers of Haitian children first arrived in the interceptions posing as shoe shiners or phone card vendors to verify that there were no Immigration agents there. “When they saw that there wasn’t any type of danger from Immigration or intelligence agencies, they then called to take the children to the different places and begin the day to collect money, to be given to the adults.