2026-02-12

UNICEF reported on February 12 that child recruitment by armed groups tripled in 2025, with minors now comprising 30 to 50 percent of gang membership and some recruits as young as age nine. This development transforms Haiti's security crisis into a child protection emergency requiring immediate programmatic response and altered rules of engagement for incoming security forces. Simultaneously, China is actively courting Haiti with financial incentives to break its 70-year diplomatic relationship with Taiwan, introducing great-power competition into what was previously treated as a regional stability challenge. Prime Minister Fils-Aime's governance consolidation has entered a steady state with no new decrees in this cycle, while the gourde remains stable and the 2026 humanitarian response plan remains funded at less than four percent of need.