Religious community keeping children safe from gangs in Haiti

By Marine Henriot and Lisa Zengarini

“I saw children  hanging around in the streets, exposed to danger, and I really felt that the Lord was asking me to do something to protect them”.

Sister Paësie is a French missionary of the Sisters of Charity. In 1999 she was sent to  Haiti where she worked in an orphanage and dispensary run by the Congregation of Mother Teresa of Calcutta for 18 years.  

Then, in 2017, she founded her own religious community, the Kizito Family, which serves in the Cité del Soleil, the biggest slum in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, to take children off the streets, and keep them safe from gang violence.

In an interview with Vatican News’ Marine Henriot, the French nun explains what inspired her to found the Kizito Family, and its work.

One home for street children, then two...

The community, currently composed of six nuns, runs four homes for boys, and two for girls in the slum, where between 400,000 and 1 million people struggle every to make ends meet in makeshift houses. 

Many children are left to their own devices and are easy preys for gangs.

Years of political turmoil and devastating economic conditions in the Caribbean island nation have led to the proliferation of armed groups fighting for control in the power vacuum created after the assassination of Haitian President Jovenal Moise just over two years ago.

1.6 million women and children living in gang-controlled areas

According to a recent briefing given by the General Director of UNICEF to the UN Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Haiti, an estimated 2 million people, including 1.6 million women and children, live in areas under their control.

The Kizito Family's mission is to provide children in the slums a safe haven. “Street children are easily recruited”, explaines Sister Paësie.

The Kizito Family's  mission

In addition to the six homes, the religious community has set up refresher courses, eight small schools (which welcome 1,500 children), canteens, extra-curricular activity centres and the Marcel Van house, a sanctuary which welcomes children in the phase of rebuilding family ties. 

Catechism centres have also sprung up.  According to the French nun, evangelization is the only way to bring hope in a social context marred by violence like Haiti: “The only long-term response is to transmit the values of the Gospel: forgiveness, preserving the common good, with the stronger one protecting the weaker ones. A society cannot be built without these Christian values”, she says.

Over the 24 years she has been serving in Haiti,  Sister Paësie has seen the island plunge into chaos.Gangs have grown more powerful since President Moïse’s assassination in 2021, and they are estimated to control up to 80% of the capital Port-au-Prince.

Gang violence in Haiti

Killings, turf wars, extortions and kidnappings  happen on a daily basis also hindering humanitarian aid, as highlighted by UNICEF.

Between July 1 and September 30 this year, police reported 1,239 homicides, compared to 577 during the same period in 2022. From  July to September, 701 people were kidnapped that is 244 per cent  more than in the same period in 2022.

According to a recent report by the Haitian NGO Cardh ( Analysis and Research Centre on Human Rights) the third quadrimester recorded an  141.33 per cent  increase of kidnappings compared to the previous three months.

Kidnappings for ransom are commonplace, and no one is spared, not even the religious working on site. In April 2021, seven Catholic monks were kidnapped, and were released three weeks later.

Asked if she is afraid for herself or her community,  Sister Paësie brushed aside the question with a smile,  and replied with an anecdote. A  few days before the interview the car driving her and some children to a baptism was stolen by a gang: "I went to the gang. I saw several people wearing hoods, armed with weapons and Kalashnikovs (…) The gang leader arrived on a motorcycle, I said to him, ‘Hello, I see that my car is parked there. In fact, I need it because we are going to a baptism.’ (...) He answered: 'Sorry sister, we didn't know it was your car (...) This won't happen again. Pray for me, sister.’”