Haiti children leave "rogue" adoption centre

Now aged two to seven years, the children were "given away" by their parents in return for promises that they would receive good care and the families would get financial assistance to set up small businesses and meet their other children's needs, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.

The children were kept at a "rogue centre" in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, ostensibly awaiting international adoption, for a period ranging from six months to two years.

Many were stunted from malnutrition and had skin diseases due to poor care, IOM spokeswoman Jemini Pandya said.

After learning of the conditions the children were kept in, and realising they had been misled, the parents denounced the centre's owner and won a judgment ordering their release this week.

"IOM and the Pan American Development Foundation have just returned 47 trafficked children back to their homes and their parents in the town of Jeremie in Haiti's Grande Anse region," Pandya told a news briefing in Geneva.

The children were considered "trafficked" as they had been put in an exploitative situation, she said.

At least another 40 children from a different town remained at the centre as authorities had yet to start proceedings to have them returned home, the spokeswoman said.

A lack of resources in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, has prevented social welfare authorities from investigating all international adoption centres, she said.

The Geneva-headquartered IOM is providing the released children with medical and psychological care, paying their school fees for a year, and giving the parents cash and training to help them care for their large families.