AFP - Children have gone missing from hospitals in Haiti since the devastating earthquake struck, raising fears of trafficking for adoption abroad, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Friday.
  
"We have documented let's say around 15 cases of children disappearing from hospitals and not with their own family at the time," said UNICEF adviser Jean Luc Legrand.
  
"UNICEF has been working in Haiti for many years and we knew the problem with the trade of children in Haiti which existed already beforehand, and unfortunately many of these trade networks have links with the international adoption 'market'," Legrand explained.
  
The agency underlined that it had warned countries during the past week not to step up adoptions from Haiti in the immediate wake of the quake.
  
Several are fast-tracking adoption procedures already under way, including Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States.
  
Legrand said the situation was similar to the aftermath of the tsunami in Asia five years ago.

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