A study conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the Faculty for Social Sciences (Flacso) reveals that around 6,000 minors a year are trafficked to the DR in complicity with Dominican and Haitian military members. The organizations say that most of the youths are brought by a relative, but many are victims of scams by human smugglers. El Caribe reports that many of these minors are the type of children one finds on Dominican streets begging, or selling items such as peanuts or sweets, or the shoeshine boys in parks. Their meager earnings go to those who house them. Both Unicef and Flacso have begun a program to increase the awareness in Haiti and the DR on the smuggling of minors. The program is financed by USAID and the Pan American Development Foundation of Haiti (PADF). Priest Pedro Roquoy said that this is a very organized trafficking ring that operates with the support of Dominican authorities, including military and migration officers. Alfredo Andre, the parish priest in Anse a Pitre, Haiti, said that in El Manguito, Pedernales there is a warehouse for people recruited by the Haitian smugglers. Many of the adult first time emigrants are employed in agriculture. As reported in El Caribe, the difference between this activity and people smuggling in general is that the children are smuggled without their consent.
The Grupo de Apoyo a los Repatriados y Refugiados (GARR) said during their participation in the event that the trafficking of humans on the Dominican frontier generates substantial profits for the smugglers and their civilian and military accomplices, both Haitian and Dominican.