(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
The Haitian government is cracking down on international adoptions in a bid to warn poor Haitians about orphanage recruiters roaming the countryside with money or false promises.
The new measures include tightening up regulations and carrying out public awareness campaigns.
Santilla Chingaipe has the details.
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Armed with megaphones, women take to the streets of Haiti every day, sending a message to residents.
They are warning parents in rural areas about the dangers of handing over their children for adoption.
Since the devastating 2010 earthquake, serious flaws in the country's adoption system have been exposed.
There have been reports of Haitians putting their children in orphanages for what they thought were temporary stays, only to find them gone when they returned for them.
Navilia Fontulus says her two-year-old grandson Edson spent three months in an orphanage after a recruiter paid his mother to take him away.
(Translated)"I thought I was going to lose him, because he was so small. After three months, we asked for him to be given back into the hands of his parents, because there have been people who gave up their children over 12 or 18 years ago and they've never found them again, not even a photo of their children. I thought I had lost him."
Since April last year, the Haitian government has sought to overhaul the country's adoption system.
It prohibited private adoptions, restricted the accreditation of foreign adoption agencies in the land and set a limit on how many children can be adopted internationally per year.
And it imposed regulations to address long-time complaints that parents were often pressured or manipulated into giving up children without understanding the ramifications.
Kristine Peduto is the head of the child protection unit in Haiti for the United Nations Children Agency, or UNICEF.
"We are all aware that, in the past, adoption was ... that there had been a lot of issues in the process of having children adopted. Corruption, lack of regulation by the state, et cetera."
Ms Peduto says it will take time for the changes to fully take hold, though.
"We know that moving away from the old system to have a country fully compliant with the Hague Convention (Hague Convention on International Adoption) will take time, and it demands tremendous effort from everyone at each step to ensure that all processes are fully respected."
