Combating child trafficking in Haiti

OUANAMINTHE, Haiti - On market days, Clarine Joanice sits on a plastic chair by the crowded bridge marking the northern border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Every time a child walks by, she gently grabs its arm and asks the accompanying adults for travel papers.

Joanice is a child protection officer with the Heartland Alliance, a small US-based rights group helping to track down child traffickers sneaking minors through Haiti's porous border.

Since January's earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people, the group has stopped 74 children it suspected were being trafficked out of the country. "We stop everyone, public cars, private cars, trucks, children on foot," explained Joanice on a busy Monday morning, as thousands of vendors carrying merchandise crossed the dusty bridge into the Dominican town of Dajabon.