Institute for a better society.

• Position: Inter-American Children's Institute

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The Inter-American Children's Institute (IIN) is a specialized agency of the OAS that seeks to improve living conditions for children in the hemisphere. Currently, the institute is reinforcing its commitment to the Caribbean countries of Haiti and Jamaica by ensuring the effectiveness of the solidarity that governments offer through various agencies that govern work on children's issues, especially in times of extreme urgency.

Haiti continues to be a top priority. Nearly one and a half million children were directly affected by the catastrophe that occurred on January 12. Even before the earthquake, the Haitian people were experiencing alarming levels of vulnerability due in large part to the many political upheavals that have taken place in the country since its independence in 1804. Haiti has the weakest economy in the Americas and one of the weakest in the world, with 80 percent of its population living below the poverty line.

In this bleak context, children and teenagers are the most adversely affected and there is little protection for their rights. Evidence of this includes high levels of poverty, child mortality, chronic malnutrition, school drop-out rates, and HIV-AIDS, among others indicators. Haiti is the country with the highest percentage of orphan children in the entire region. Furthermore, it is estimated that more than half of all minors who live in poverty lack a birth certificate, a fact that makes it harder for legal mechanisms to function on their behalf. The lack of formal identification also makes it harder to implement strategies to protect children against various forms of abandonment and abuse.

The recent earthquake exposed the severity of Haiti's problems and made it even more difficult for its institutions and communities to provide a comprehensive response to the many needs of Haitian children. In this situation, the IIN determined that it was essential to provide technical support to the Haitian state to strengthen its institutions. By doing so, it will contribute to building an effective system for protecting the human rights of children.

The IIN mission is "to contribute to the development of public policies ensuring the promotion and exercise of children's rights within the framework of a strengthened Democratic Governance in the OAS Member States by promoting cooperation with Civil Society and the creation of a culture based on children's rights and well-being."

Within that mission, the...