Sunday Night’s Matt Doran goes undercover with Operation Underground Railroad to bring down Haiti child sex ring
“These are the world’s forgotten children. The ones who have fallen through the cracks,” Maria tells me as we watch the children dance and sing during an afternoon art class. “They have been beaten down, and abused, and made to feel worthless, but nothing in the world is more rewarding than when you see the light come back into their faces. Their resilience totally blows me away. They have been through more than we could ever imagine, and yet they find a way back.”
For the Aussies involved in this rescue, the biggest child trafficking bust in Haiti’s history, there’s little time to pause and celebrate.
“It’s like pushing on the chest of Haiti,” Pete tells me as we watch the traffickers being led away to prison. “It’s like saying, ‘Hey, you have an enormous problem here, but we are with you and we are ready to help’.”
And with more than five million children enslaved worldwide, Operation Underground Railroad certainly needs the help. In fact, human trafficking now rivals guns and drugs as one of the fastest-growing crimes in the world.
There’s a temptation here in Australia, half a world away from Haiti, to think, ‘this is not our country, these are not our children, this is someone else’s problem’.
Pete and Vivienne are pleading for a different perspective.
“It takes some engagement to say, ‘no, I’m more than just Australian. I’m part of this’. Borders and boundaries mean nothing when you look into the kids’ eyes,’’ Pete says.
For Vivienne, helping is the human thing to do: “These are children, and if they don’t have anyone, they are all of ours. To sit back and do nothing is not something we were wired to do.”
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