UNICEF says recruitment of children by armed groups in Haiti tripled last year
Published:Thursday | February 12, 2026 | 3:12 PM
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The recruitment of children by armed groups in Haiti tripled last year as poverty and violence deepens across the troubled Caribbean country, according to a new UNICEF report released Thursday.
The surge comes as gang violence displaces a record 1.4 million people across Haiti — more than half of them children whom experts say are left exposed and vulnerable.
“The extent of the increase definitely is a surprise,” said Geeta Narayan, UNICEF’s representative in Haiti.
“That’s devastating.”
The United Nations estimates that 30% to 50% of members of armed groups are children, with some as young as 9 years old being recruited, she said in a phone interview.
“The younger the child, the more you can control them,” she said.
“They have less ability to fight back, to be disruptive. … You can coerce them to do horrible things.”
The UN Secretary General is expected to provide a breakdown of how many children were recruited last year in his annual report on Haiti in upcoming months.
Gangs control an estimated 90% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as swaths of land in the country’s central region.
Boys generally act as spies, carry ammunition and weapons, and are often charged with watching over abducted people, Narayan said.
Meanwhile, girls often face sexual violence and are tasked with domestic work including cooking and washing clothes.
“In many cases, the child or the family does receive some kind of payment,” she said.
Previous UN reports have stated that payments can range from $30 a week to several hundred dollars a month.
Narayan noted that sometimes families are paid to give up a child, noting they don’t have a choice given the country’s extreme poverty.
More than 60% of Haiti’s nearly 12 million people live on less than $4 a day, and hundreds of thousands of Haitians are starving or nearing starvation.
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