The executive president of the National Children and Youth Council (Conani), Kirsys Fernandez, says that most children begging on the streets are Haitian.
She said that international organizations working in the Dominican Republic and Haiti were trying to counteract the traffic of minors and to eradicate the problem.
She went on to say that Migration and other departments were working together to take the children off the streets but that the situation was complicated because Conani did not have a sister agency in Haiti for handing the children over to be returned to their families.
Fernandez said that she hoped that with the efforts being made that the children could go back to their country of birth and make contact with their families, who, in her opinion were still living there.
She was speaking at the launch of “The Protection of our Children and Young People is in your Hands”, a campaign aimed at promoting the role of local offices and the rights of children and young people in Santiago, Higuey, Pedernales, Boca Chica, Villa Altagracia, Las Terrenas, San Pedro de Macoris, Elias Pina, Jimani and Dajabon.
She said they are also working to overcome all the other problems that children face such as child labor, abuse, lack of protection, lack of registration of their birth, and access to education.
It has been documented in the past that unscrupulous individuals literally hire the children and make them beg at key city corners as part of a people-smuggling network.
www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2013/4/17/273573/Mayoria-de-los-ninos-que-trabajan-en-las-calles-son-haitianos