July 2018

Widespread use of child domestic workers—known as restavèks—continues. Restavèks, most of whom are girls, are sent from low-income households to live with wealthier families in the hope that they will be schooled and cared for in exchange for performing light chores. Though difficult to calculate, some estimates suggest that between 225,000 and 300,000 children work […]

  Pregnant women suffering from cholera are being treated in 2012 in Haiti’s only Cholera Maternity Ward at the Doctors Without Borders hospital Isaie Jeanty on the edge of Port-au-Prince. PATRICK FARRELL Miami Herald Staff

Orphan children sit in their beds at the Nest of Hope orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on June 28. UNICEF estimates that 80 to 90 percent of the children in orphanages have one or two living parents.

According to the World Bank, Haiti spends less on healthcare per capita than its closest neighbors. The Dominican Republic spends $180 per capita; Cuba, $781; and the Latin American and Caribbean region overall, $336. Haiti spends just $13. Maternal and infant mortality rates are also five and three times, respectively, higher than the regional average,

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES jcharles@miamiherald.com In a country where more women die before, during and after childbirth than anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere, poor women in Haiti with high-risk pregnancies now have one less option for life-saving care. The Geneva-based medical charity, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has closed down its free, round-the-clock maternity