"This is an offensive, a brutal assault on childhood itself." This is how Rawya Rageh, Amnesty International's adviser for crisis situations, summed up the effects of gang violence on children in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. This damning assessment is the title of a report published on Wednesday, February 12 by the international human rights organization. The 76-page document summarizes the investigative work carried out over several months – including two weeks on the ground in September 2024 – by a pair of researchers, of which Rageh was one.

With 80% of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area controlled by these criminal gangs, which have been rampant for several years in the Caribbean country of 11 million inhabitants, "it became very clear from the children's testimonies that virtually every aspect of their lives has been disrupted by the violence," the investigator told Le Monde. Among the research, Rageh and her colleague conducted some 50 interviews with minors aged 10 to 17 in the Haitian capital and several surrounding communes. The children of Port-au-Prince "can no longer go to school or play in the street: they can no longer enjoy childhood as such," lamented the former Egyptian journalist.

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